Are top sets always our top priority? Of course, we know that every child matters (should that now have capital letters?) but those of us who teach in an ability-setted context also know that a bottom set left unable to access the curriculum is likely to pose bigger problems than a top set which is a little bored, and that there are only so many hours of the day available for planning lessons. In this article Ellie Chrispin, who has just completed her NQT year, gives an unusual example of a teaching strategy which has successfully inspired her top set Year 8. Inspired by TV coverage of the four hundredth anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, she created a lesson in which her students could investigate the hype by working out what actually had happened. Enlisting a colleague to team-teach with her, Chrispin set up half her class to be entirely convinced that Guy Fawkes had attempted to destroy Parliament, while the other half were equally convinced that he and his co-conspirators had in fact been set up by high-ranking Protestants such as Robert Cecil. Crucially, both sides used exactly the same evidence. Chrispin’s class learned to argue as historians do. This article also suggests a salutary warning – even the most able students were extremely easy to convince of a particular teacher-led interpretation of the evidence available.