Our Tudor workshops - Teachers' Guide

Children's Period Costumes

Unit 1

We can supply period costumes for boys and girls. We supply full details including a draft letter to be sent home with pupils on what to wear with the costumes.

Costumes can also be supplied for events at which the society are not attending; please read the Costume hire form for requirements and costs.

Gunpowder Plot

Interactive Story Telling Session

Unit 2

Years 1 and 2 can be supplied with a simplified interactive story about the Gunpowder Plot.

Unit 3

Years 3 to 6 can be supplied with an interactive PowerPoint.

Both of these are done by two costumed members of the society.

Rich & Poor

Using and understanding Tudor Inventories.

The children are given two inventories; one for a wealthy person and one for a poor person, and a glossary of terms.

Ask the children to make inferences about the people who owned the items listed in the inventories; e.g. their occupations, leisure interests, wealth.

Ask the children to compare the two people; Who was richer? What work did they do? Who owned the better equipped home?

The children to summarise and record their conclusions about the people and the house. Ask them whether they think there are things missing from the inventory.

Unit 4

We can supply a Calligraphy workshop.

We will supply two worksheets for the school to photocopy. This assists the learning of how the inventories were written, and explains the terms used and what the individual items were.

We explain the inventories and give examples of what may be on them.

The school will be supplied with copies of inventories, and a worksheet for the school to photocopy, so the children can compare and contrast the items.

Unit 5

We can explain which trades people worked in, and the differences between a Master and an Apprentice.

We can supply an Apothecary Workshop.
This covers herbs, remedies and health.

Unit 8

We can supply artefacts and games to demonstrate the differences between rich and poor people.

Rich & Poor

Give the children sources depicting poor people in Tudor times; e.g. scenes of beggars being punished, contemporary pictures of various types of beggar, pictures of almshouses, an extract from a law against beggars, a contemporary description.

Ask the children to consider what the sources tell them about the lives of poor people at this time and how other people in Tudor times regarded the poor.

Ask the children to describe more than one source. What does this source show about the lives of the poor? What does this source show about how the rich treated the poor? Why might the rich people fear the poor?

Unit 9

We can supply an interactive PowerPoint explaining the Poor Laws, Removal and Settlement bills.

We can supply case law of local beggars showing the punishments for various crimes.

We will supply a copy of a worksheet for the school to photocopy.

The Calligraphy workshop will show that some rich people learnt to write, the poor did not.

Rich & Poor

Agree headings with the children to help them structure an answer to this question; e.g. houses, belongings, food, health, hygiene, clothes, leisure, lives of rich and poor men, women and children.

Ask the children to record the information they have already collected in previous activities on a grid divided into sections for each of the headings, and into two columns, 'Rich' and 'Poor'

Unit 5

The Apothecary workshop will show how health and hygiene were dealt with in Tudor times.

Unit 6

We can supply a Dance workshop, which shows the differences between the two classes.

Unit 7

We can supply a Surgery workshop, which shows the standards of hygiene and health care during the period.