Medieval castle development (Motte and Bailey, Stone-Keep & Concentric)

KS3 History lesson on the development of castles in the Medieval period. Contains lesson PowerPoint, two activity worksheets, and worksheet answers.

The lesson begins on the first slide of the PowerPoint with an introductory discussion of why William the Conqueror began building castles. This helps students begin thinking about what sort of features a castle might need in order to fulfil these purposes.

The next slide of the PowerPoint then introduces students to the concept of ‘Motte-and-Bailey’ castles, introducing them to the different components of that type of castle, and providing a couple of ‘prompt’ questions about why certain decisions may have been made about the way they were constructed.

This is followed by the first activity worksheet, which asks them to annotate the diagram of a motte-and-bailey castle using the key words and descriptions provided. Answers to this are then on the following PowerPoint slide.

The PowerPoint then continues to go through the stone-keep and concentric castles, with modern-day examples provided.

The final activity is a simple gap-fill exercises, which asks students to recall the knowledge they have acquired through discussion from the PowerPoint. The activity sheet contains a short paragraph on each type of castle with approximately 6/7 key words missing from each. Missing words are listed at the bottom of the sheet.

There is an additional optional sheet on the second page of the word doc for the second activity for SEN/low-ability students, which divides the list of missing words into paragraphs to help them narrow them down.