BBC Teach - Class Clips - 3- What was life like for the rural poor in Elizabethan England?

Based on Ian Mortimer’s popular ‘A Time Traveller’s guide to Elizabethan England’ series, these worksheets provide a useful note taking scaffold for KS3 and KS4 students. The set of resources could be used as a useful overview to the Edexcel 9:1 GCSE - Elizabethan England 1558 - 88 supporting the syllabus topics: Challenges to Elizabeth’s rule & Life in Elizabethan England. Each film clip is around 10 minutes in duration making them an ideal flipped learning task, starter or plenary activity based upon the BBC Teach - Class Clips link:

Search - BBC Teach - Class Clips - KS3 History: What was life like for the rural poor in Elizabethan England?

Through a journey back in time, we discover that for many Elizabethans living in the countryside life could be very harsh. Ian Mortimer visits a reconstructed Elizabethan thatched cottage to experience the living conditions for himself. Inside it is very basic and its inhabitants would have had few possessions. Society was strictly divided by class, and these people were among the poorest. They would have earned a meagre living by labouring on nearby farms. Without growing some of their own food and making their own clothes, life would have been a real struggle for survival.