KS3 History: Industrial Revolution - Living Conditions & Health in the Towns

In this lesson, students will discover what living conditions were like in Britain’s new industrial towns and specifically examine the increase in illness and disease. Particular attention is paid to the creation of terraced housing, the growth of slum areas, back-to-back housing and the pollution and waste created by such extreme overcrowding in the working class parts of towns.

The lesson includes the following:
Slide 1: Title slide
Slide 2: Lesson learning aims and progress
Slide 3: Lesson Warm Up – Class discussion about how students would describe ‘typical’ housing and accommodation today.
Slide 4: Lesson Warm Up II – Fill in the missing facts about the growth of towns in the Industrial Revolution
Slide 5: Missing terms from the warm-up revealed.
Slide 6: Starter Task: Students view a diagram of typical terraced and back-to-back housing and use this to discuss what housing conditions were like and how this led to ill-health and disease.
Slide 7: Source Analysis – An illustration of slum housing with prompt questions
Slide 8: Source Analysis – Printable GCSE style question sheet
Slide 9: Background Information – The growth of industrial towns
Slide 10: Background Information – Overcrowded terraced housing
Slide 11: Printable fact sheet
Slide 12: Activity 1 – Printable worksheet
Slide 13: Activity 2 – Creative historical writing task with full instructions
Slide 14: Activity 3 – Extended historical writing task with structure ideas
Slide 15: Follow Up Challenge Questions
Slide 16: Learning Review Crossword with answers revealed
Slide 17: Printable version of the learning review crossword

I would be grateful if you could leave a review for the lesson if you feel the lesson is effective for you. Many thanks if you spend some of your valuable time doing this as feedback is highly valued.

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. Thank you.