AQA GCSE Elizabethan England, 1568-1603

These ready to use exam focused resources on Elizabethan England cover the AQA GCSE topic in depth.

These fully resourced lessons are perfect for busy teachers who want their students to master content, think like historians and succeed in their exams.

These resources provide everything you need to deliver outstanding lessons, whether you’re introducing Elizabeth’s struggles for stability as a female monarch, exploring the Catholic plots and rebellions against her or unpacking the golden age of theatre.

Students will also learn about Elizabeth’s court and government, the further challenges to her rule, Elizabethan society, exploration and the wider Elizabethan world.

The lessons contain different tasks to challenge the students and are differentiated.

Furthermore, each lesson focuses on how to answer GCSE practice questions from the exam, notably how convincing is the interpretation, writing an account, explain the importance and how far do you agree?

The lessons are as follows:
L1 An introduction to Elizabeth
L2 Elizabethan Court and Government
L3 Which problems did Elizabeth face in her first ten years?
L4 Elizabeth and marriage
L5 Who were Elizabeth’s key people? (free resource)
L6 The Elizabethan Religious Settlement (free resource)
L7 Threats from the Norfolk and Ridolfi Plots
L8 The Essex Rebellion
L9 Catholic threats at home and abroad
L10 The Puritan threat
L11 The threat of Mary, Queen of Scots
L12 Wealth Status and fashion
L13 Elizabethan Theatre
L14 The Golden Age (free resource)
L15 Poverty and the Poor Law of 1601
L16 Famous explorers (focus on Drake, Hawkins and Raleigh)
L17 Planning the Spanish Armada (2027)
L18 Planning for the Spanish Armada (2027)
L19 Defeat of the Spanish Armada (2027)

For further assessment materials, please visit the AQA website for specimen questions and answers.

All the resources include suggested teaching strategies, retrieval practice, differentiated materials and come in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

Any reviews would be gratefully received to aid future planning.