Mystery in the Cathedral - Henry and Becket

PowerPoint and differentiated worksheets to tell the story of Henry II and Thomas Becket. The aim of the lesson is to help students come to a conclusion on whether the King or the Church were in control in medieval England.

To come to this conclusion students complete a number of tasks including a source evaluation, discussion and answering questions on their own and an indepth acting activity where 9 to 17 students can have a role as part of an imagined news report on the events. Hopefully this activity draws out acting skills because most students will have seen an exaggerated news report before and helps them think about truth versus exaggeration. For students who do not like acting they can complete the tasks on the worksheets to feed into the final discussion whether the Church of Crown were the most powerful.