Teaching Primary History: Life in Tudor Times for Key Stage 2

>>ADDED SEPTEMBER 2011 Outstanding KS2 Lesson: Get ready the Queen is coming.  Preparing a Tudor feast.

>>ADDED MAY 2011 Outstanding KS2 Lesson: Henry VIII a question of interpretations. Could you spot Henry VIII in a police line-up?
AND Outstanding Lesson: Elizabeth I portraits - things aren’t what they seem. 

>>ADDED JANUARY 2011 in MEDIUM TERM PLANNING section Tudor Planning Sheet  Detailed KS2 plan with full set of learning objectives and imaginative learning activities and outcomes linked to the Outstanding Lessons on the site and resources from the other best resource providers.

The following Key Stage 2 history lessons have all been judged to be outstanding according to OFSTED criteria. There is a wide variety of teaching and learning activities as well as a rich array of teaching resources including PowerPoint® presentations. New lessons on the Tudors will be regularly added to meet the demands of the changing primary curriculum.

Outstanding Lessons

• NEW SEPTEMBER 2011 Get ready - the queen is coming!  Using the Mantle of the Expert approach pupils have to quickly research the food and entertainment for Elizabeth I impending visit, but be careful her expectations are high!  Full resources with PowerPoint and weblinks.

• NEW MAY 2011 Elizabeth I portraits - things aren’t what they seem  A really excellent and engaging lesson (with PowerPoint and other resources) exploring why Elizabeth 1's portraits seem to show her growing younger as she got older.  You will find links to a helpful diagnostic assessment task, mark scheme and samples of KS2 work.

• NEW MAY 2011 Henry VIII a question of interpretations. Could you spot Henry VIII in a police line-up? This is a really fun lesson which shows children what is meant by historical interpretations in an engaging and accessible way. It appeals to both visual and kinaesthetic learners by using the police line-up approach.

• Why was the Spanish Armada defeated?   Using a strategy called  waiting room  to help pupils to work out their own explanation as to why the Armada failed.

• Life in Tudor times: highs and lows of the life of Catherine of Aragon.   From sequencing to living graph

• Henry VIII on the money; what can coins tell us about him?

• SMART TASK History and literacy. Making sense of a letter from Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn.

• SMART TASK Linking history with numeracy: More glass than wall Pupils work out whether this is a fair description of a Tudor Palace.

Want to know what's coming next? Click here to find out

Teaching Life in Tudor Times to Key Stage 2

The lessons here broadly follow three themes;

• the appearance and power of Henry and his daughter Elizabeth who, between them, ruled for over three quarters of the 16thcentury
• the difference in home life and leisure of the rich, poor and yeomen
• the key events of the Break With Rome and the Spanish Armada

You will find plenty of innovative ways of using Tudor portraits not least the Police Line-up for Henry VIII and the rescuing of a doomed portrait painter from Elizabeth's Tower of London.  Children are offered a history mystery as well as a living graph to help them to understand the issues behind Henry's Break with Rome, with Henry appearing in the 'Big Brother' diary room at one stage!!

The lessons on the Armada are great fun, especially the Waiting Room drama and also lead to excellent explanatory writing because of the quality of the preparatory speaking and listening.

As more work becomes available we will be featuring some really imaginative 'Through the Keyhole' examinations of typical Tudor homes using inventories to help reconstruct what one might have looked like and how the owner might have dressed.

Resources

UPDATE October 2010 If you are looking for a way of looking at Tudor lifestyles using evidence, then the V&A has a nice activity in which pupils study an inventory in its original form, as well as a transcript, and then have to answer a set of multiple choice questions.  The V&A has a very, clear and accessible way of finding authentic material presented in an engaging way for children. The Museum has taken great care to translate and then simplify the documents.

You can do far worse than beginning your search for interactive ideas on this topic by visiting the showme section of the 24 hour Museum site.

Up next

• Tudor times film set. Can the pupils dress a film set showing three levels of society?
• Through the keyhole. What can we work out about the type of person who lived here from these old wills and inventories?

If you would like to see any examples of draft activities for the above lessons then please email us and we can send  you a few samples.

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