Shifting scenes of life in the city

Take a walk through the towns and villages of Britain and often your focus is drawn to everyday tasks such as shopping and returning a rented DVD. But if you focus on street names, buildings and the design of the area you live in, you can unearth fascinating details about how everyday life in Britain has developed.

Try Buxtocl’s Middle Ages resource - a great way to explore medieval town life. By analysing modern interpretations and cross-referencing them with knowledge gained from studying the period, pupils can test their reliability and compare the age with their own.

The Tudor period is another interesting topic that can tell us a lot about our roots. Begin with a card-sort activity by BiltonStilton to get a feel of how society was structured. Once you have established an overview, explore the theme of fashion using the Tudor clothes resource by Looney Tunes. With some targeted questioning, pupils can make comparisons. Do the rich today still have their own fashion trends? Did the Tudors inherit this desire to look good from the medieval nobility?

A look at the Industrial Revolution’s effect on everyday life is a fun way to finish off. Try leighbee23‘s visual activity, which uses a famous Punch cartoon to unearth the huge shift in the way people conducted themselves, brought about by the changes in this period.