Henry VIII - Wolsey's Foreign Policy Aims - GCSE Edexcel History - Lesson 6

UPDATED FOR 2025/6 SPEC

• What were Wolsey’s foreign policy aims?
• What was the purpose of Wolsey’s foreign policy aims?
• What was Europe like during the reign of Henry VIII?
• What were the threats from other countries in Europe?

This is a fully resourced lesson which includes a printable fact sheet based on the GCSE Edexcel specification as well as worksheets, discussion tasks, engaging background information, warm up tasks and learning reviews.

The downloaded lesson includes the following:

• 1x A4 printable map-based worksheet
• 1x A4 printable worksheet to explain the threats to England from Europe

1x main Power Point:

• Slide 1: Title slide – Thomas Wolsey’s Foreign Policy Aims
• Slide 2: Main Lesson Aims
• Slide 3: As You Enter Warm Up Question: Why is war expensive?
• Slide 4-5: Starter Task 1: The Geography of Europe in the 1500s activity – with answers revealed.
• Slide 6-7: Previous Learning Recap – 8 multiple choice questions from the topic so far which will also help with the subject knowledge for this lesson.
• Slide 8: Starter Task 2 – Should Wolsey aim for war or peace with his foreign policy?
• Slide 9: Task 1 – Source analysis activity
• Slide 10: Background information – Map based information about each of the European nations during the 1500s.
• Slide 11: Task 2 – Worksheet based activity
• Side 12: Task 3 – Explaining the threats to Henry VIII and England in the 1500s – links to the A4 worksheet
• Slide 13: Task 4 – Explaining Wolsey’s foreign policy aims.
• Slide 14: Follow Up Challenge Tasks
• Slide 15: Example exam question – ‘Two features’.
• Slide 16-17: Learning Review Activity
• Slide 18: Lesson fact sheet
• Slide 19: Original Map which can be edited for personal use.

This lesson has been updated in line with the amended specification and exam questions ready for the 2025/6 examinations.

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.