The Universal Hero - Heracles and his 12 Labours

This lesson goes into detail about each of Heracles’ 12 Labours; what happened during them and after each one.

The lesson is dual coded where possible to ensure students can easily access the key information they need in what can be an otherwise information heavy lesson.

This lesson resource guides pupils to learn about Heracles’ Twelve Labours in first an independent way,and then in a collaborative way to mixup T&L strategies to ensure engagement throughout from all students.

Handouts with info on each Labour is included with quotes from primary sources (but not too much - to ensure accessibility) and a commentary for each one too. I have also included the information on each Labour on separate slides in case you’d rather go through them one by one as a class on the whiteboard.

Pupils use this information to fill in an A3 sheet (included as a hidden slide to be printed off) and then have their learning cemented by the inclusion of a variety of video clips that summarise the Labours in 4 different parts.

Throughout there are study questions and stretch and challenge activities to ensure the most able students are catered for. The summative assessment task at the end is an exam question, but there is also a newspaper task activity with a template included (again as a hidden slide for printing) which worked well with my students as a homework task.

I did this lesson with my students in 2 x 1 hour lessons and the feedback I got from it was really good - they certainly retained the knowledge they needed for their Classical Civilisation GCSE exam.

There is also a transparent cover on each slide to help pupils with dyslexia/Irlen’s which can be easily deleted or the colour can be changed to suit your pupils.

Thanks for taking a look :)