Mary, Queen of Scots | GCSE

Elizabethan England Bundle Part 1

This bundle is the first part in a series of lessons I have created for AQA GCSE 9-1 Elizabethan England 1568-1603. Having taught this unit for a number of years, I have tweaked the order of lessons I now teach at the beginning. As well as teaching her court, government and parliament, I have included Elizabeth’s favourites and an introduction to the religious settlement (which are offered as free lessons), as I felt students were getting confused without these aspects of the course being referred to early on. The theme throughout this bundle of lessons is to examine how Elizabeth tried to assert her authority and control in the first half of her reign. The lessons contain different tasks to challenge the students and are differentiated. Furthermore each lesson focuses on how to answer a GCSE practice question from the exam, notably in this unit a source, write an account and significance question. The lessons are as follows: L1: An introduction to Elizabeth L2 Elizabethan Court and Government L3 Which problems did Elizabeth face in her first ten years? L4 Elizabeth and marriage L5 Who were Elizabeth’s key people? (free resource) L6 The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (free resource) L7 Threats from the Norfolk and Ridolfi Plots L8 The Essex Rebellion L9 Catholic threats at home and abroad L10 The Puritan threat L11 The threat of Mary, Queen of Scots The lessons are enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lessons and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning. The resources includes suggested teaching strategies, retrieval practice, differentiated materials and come in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change. Any reviews would be gratefully received.