A Yr8 Civil War lesson on whether or not Parliament were right to execute Charles I in 1649. This is at least two lessons’ worth of material: in the first lesson, students categorise justifications for and against executing Charles, and then evaluate and analyse the reasons behind the decision. The pupils then go on to create a newspaper article (“The Execution Special”) from either Parliament’s or the Royalists’ perspective about what happened, why and whether it’s good for England’s future.

A nice self contained lesson where the students debate the qualities of a good leader, and then apply their ideas to the profiles of the contenders to the throne in 1066 to decide who they think would make the best leader - a classic lesson! This is a very versatile lesson - you can do the activites within the lesson, or you could change and adapt the profiles to suit your class - making top trumps for each of the contenders is always fun!

A fun lesson in which the students try and draw out the comparisons between Brexit and the Reformation in 1534. All built around an FT article (pretty challenging- there is a lower ability version that I created but it’s still a challenging read) from which the students draw comparisons. They then have a go at running a “Tudor Brexit” campaign, arguing for either remaining in the Catholic Church or Leaving it.

A lesson for Year 8 about why there was a witch craze in England after the 17th century - resources pinched from various locations as well as my own work; it may be nice to add a source activity in there too!