Elizabethan Poor Law and poverty

AQA GCSE 9-1 Elizabethan England, 1568-1603

The overarching aim of this and the subsequent bundle of lessons is to question and explore how Elizabeth asserted her authority and control in the second half of her reign.

What was it like to be poor in Elizabethan England and how did the Elizabethans deal with poverty?

Moreover how did attitudes change and why was there a rise in the building of Almshouses by the end of the Sixteenth Century?

These are the key questions focused upon in this lesson as students learn about the causes and consequences of being poor.

Two GCSE practice questions are undertaken by students as they acquire skills in answering an interpretation and write an account question using the information in the lesson.

Furthermore they can peer assess their work and note where and how they can improve.

They will also by the end of the lesson recognise the significance of the new Elizabethan Poor Law and how the impact of poverty varied across the country which is needed to be able to obtain the more complex reasoning answers demanded in the AQA GCSE markschemes.

The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited to show the progress of learning.

The resource includes suggested teaching strategies, retrieval practice, differentiated materials and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.