KS2 KS3 Tudor History: The Importance of Portraits to King Henry VIII

In this lesson, students will have an opportunity to analyse the portraits of King Henry VIII. They will be able to explain why portraits were so important to Henry VIII as well describe the common features of all Henry VIII’s portraits.

This lesson can either be used in a unit of work about the Tudors and Henry VIII or as a stand-alone lesson covering Henry VIII. It can also be used to help students analyse the art of the Tudors.

This is a fully resources lesson which includes a warmup, starter task, engaging background information, various learning activities, challenge tasks and learning reviews.

The lesson includes the following:

Resource 1: 4x A4 worksheets to help students analyse the portraits of Henry VIII and a worksheet aimed at higher ability students to analyse the importance of portraits.

Resource 2: Power Point
Slide 1: Title slide – The importance of Portraits to Henry VIII
Slide 2: Outline of the main lesson aims
Slide 3: Lesson Warm Up Activity: Why do we take pictures of ourselves?
Slide 4: Key Term Analysis – What is a ‘portrait’?
Slide 5: Starter Task – Students have to pick one portrait from a choice of three which they think Henry VIII should use as his ‘official’ portrait.
Slide 6-7: Background information about Tudor portraits and the artist Hans Holbein the Younger.
Slide 8: Background Information about how portraits were forms of propaganda.
Side 9: Task – Portrait analysis task instructions (links to the A4 worksheets included with the resource)
Slide 10-11: Task – What was the purpose of portraits? Filling in the missing term task with answers.
Slide 12: Task – Tudor Vs Modern Day portrait analysis
Slide 13: Follow Up Challenge Task Questions
Slide 14: Learning Review Activity

Reviews are really important to me and if you have enjoyed the lesson, it would be great if you could do this. Many thanks if you spend some of your valuable time doing this and your feedback is highly valued.

All images used in this lesson are in the public domain and are therefore copyright free at the time of publishing. Images which require attribution have been attributed in the notes section of each slide where the image appears. If you feel any errors have been made, please contact me at raschoolresources@gmail.com in the first instance to resolve any issues. My lessons are completed using PowerPoint and designed on widescreen formatting. Thank you.