AQA GCSE Britain: Health and the People, c1000 to present

The aim of this lesson is threefold; to understand the beliefs and treatments of the Black Death, to recognise why these had a detrimental affect on medicine and to understand the similarities between the Black Death of the 14th Century and the Plague of the 17th Century.

This lesson can be delivered over two, owing to the content and challenge.

There are numerous learning tasks for students to complete, from tabling the symptoms of the Black Death and Plague, using sources to map out the beliefs and treatments at the time, a thinking quilt, as well as plotting the similarities of the Black Death and the Plague on a skeleton hand and tackling two GCSE practice questions.

A find and fix task at the end checks understanding and challenges student thinking.

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

The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson and there are differentiated materials included.