Diamond 9 Activity: Why did the Liberals introduce their reforms 1906 - 1911?

This great resource makes an excellent starter, plenary or revision activity for teaching the introduction to the Liberal Reforms 1906 - 1911. Its aimed primarily at middle to upper ability students as a thinking skills activity, although with support lower ability students could easily access this task . The pedagogy underpinning this strategy is that when we rank items, either statements, objects or images, we are required to make explicit the over- arching relationships by which we organise our knowledge and connect our learning. If you would like something more suitable for middle and lower ability then you could always download my card sort, which provides students with headings such as New Liberalism, political rivalry, national efficiency and social reformers.

The resource includes nine diamond cards. Each card includes a statements explaining why the Liberals introduced their reforms. Students a asked to do the following tasks:

1. Remove any reasons that you don’t think are important.
2. Arrange the remaining diamonds to show any links that you can find between the different reasons.
3. Make a smaller diamond shape using the four most important reasons to explain why the Liberals introduced their reforms.

At each stage students should be feeding back to their group or the class and explaining their choices. The discussion and explanation around the choices that they have made are critical in helping them develop their understanding of the topic.

The aims and objectives for this lesson are:

Theme: How successful were the Liberal Reforms 1906 - 1911?
Know: Why did the Liberals introduced their reforms?
Understand: What roles did social reformers, national efficiency, political rivalry and new liberalism play influencing their decision?
Evaluate: which factors were the most important?

WILF: What Am I Looking For?
Identify & Describe: Why did the Liberals introduce their reforms?
Understand: What roles did the social reformers, national efficiency, political rivalry and new liberalism play?
Analyse: Which factors were the most important?

If you like this resource then why not check out my other resources on this topic in my TES shop. You can also follow ‘The History Academy’ on Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube and Facebook for the latest updates or even to get in touch and chat about how you have used this resource or to ask questions. We aim to produce cheap and affordable resources for either the price of a good cup of coffee or a happy meal so that you can spend more time doing the things that you want.

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Kind Regards

Roy