Diverse British History
GROW Humanities · Autumn 1 · Week 4 · 40 minutes
Today at a Glance
◆ Supported
Use the clue cards. Commit to long ago or last century for three evidence cards, then check.
▲ Standard
Commit to a period for five cards, check, and say how sure each piece of evidence lets you be.
★ Stretch
Commit, check, then compare two kinds of evidence and judge which tells us more, with a reason.
Teacher Print Tools — Week 4
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
Arrival Task – What we already know about evidence
Last week we explained why people came to Britain after 1948. This week we look much further back.
Archaeology means finding and studying things people left behind. A burial can tell us where someone grew up.
Arrival decision: Use the evidence cards, or add one piece of evidence you can point to in the source pack. Both are full answers. Nobody will ask which one you picked.
Before we start, look at the six evidence cards on your table. Each card describes one piece of evidence from the school-approved pack, and its period is hidden under a flap. Everyone in this room can work with these cards from start to end.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
Starter: Why commit before you look?
Here are two ways to use the same card.
Way A: lift the flap, read the period, say “I knew that”.
Way B: read the clues, commit to a period on your whiteboard, then lift the flap and compare.
Way B tells you more than Way A. Way A tests nothing. Way B tests whether the clues were enough to date the evidence. If your guess was wrong, you learn which clue you missed. If it was right, you learn which clue worked.
The need for this lesson is the commit. Historians commit to a claim and then check it against the evidence. By the end you will be able to commit, reveal, and say how sure the evidence lets you be.
Try it in your head: someone hands you a coin with a king's head on it. Before you turn it over, commit: old or new? Now turn it over and read the date. Was your clue good enough? That is commit and reveal.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
I Do: A long presence, on one line
The timeline above stretches from the 300s to 1972. Each dot is one kind of evidence from the cards. The label names the evidence, not a person, because for most of these dots we do not know a name.
Notice what the line does not say. It does not say these were the only people. Each dot is one piece of evidence that survived. Many more people lived here whose evidence did not survive. A gap on the line is a gap in the evidence, not proof that nobody was there.
Watch me do it: I take the card about the burial. The clues say the grave held a jet bracelet and an ivory bangle, and tests on the bones point to the north of Africa. No date is written. Roman objects like these are dated by experts to the 300s. So I commit: long ago, Roman. I write it on my board. Then I lift the flap. York in Roman times, 4th century. My commit was right, and I know which clue worked: the objects.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
We Do: Commit before the reveal
Card 1: a painted roll showing a court procession, with a Black trumpeter on horseback. No year printed on the card.
Card 2: a list of ship passengers with names, ages and the jobs they hoped to do. A ship name is printed.
Card 3: a table counting people by where they were born, made by the government.
Commit first: hold up 1, 2 or 3 fingers for the period you would choose: 1 for long ago, before 1700; 2 for the 1700s and 1800s; 3 for the last hundred years. Everyone shows at the same time. Then we lift the flaps and compare.
Evidence check
Card 3 has more than one right answer. The government has counted people since 1801, so a census table could be from the 1800s or from last century. When we reveal, we check the clue you used. We do not check the number of fingers. A commit with a clue is history. A commit without one is a guess.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
I Do: How sure does the evidence let us be?
The diagram above has three boxes: claim, then evidence, then how sure. The claim is what we say about the past. The evidence is the card. The last box is a judgement: very sure, fairly sure, or not yet.
Here is a judgement that goes too far: "The burial in York proves that thousands of people from the north of Africa lived in Britain in Roman times." One burial shows that at least one person did. It cannot count thousands. The claim is bigger than the evidence.
Fixing it together: shrink the claim to fit the evidence. "The burial in York shows that at least one woman with heritage from the north of Africa lived and died in Britain in Roman times, and other finds suggest she was not alone." Now the claim is the size of the evidence.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
We Do: Everyone commits to how sure
◆ Supported
Point to the card you think is the strongest evidence. Then choose the how-sure card that fits.
▲ Standard
For two cards, say the claim, the evidence and how sure, in order.
★ Stretch
Compare a burial and a printed book as evidence. Say which lets us be more sure about a date, and why.
We judge one card on the board first. Nobody writes yet. Everyone writes very, fairly or not yet on a whiteboard for the same card. Then we show them all at once. Then we agree a reason.
The card for this is the 1948 passenger list. The claim is done: hundreds of people from the Caribbean arrived on one ship in June 1948. Your job is the how-sure box. Write the word and one clue from the card, not a describing word.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
Independent Work — Your record: diverse British history
Make one record. You may use the six evidence cards, or add one piece of evidence you can point to in the source pack, or both. All three are complete answers.
◆ Supported
Three cards. Commit to a period for each on your board, then lift the flap and tick or change. An adult may scribe your exact words, and the words stay yours. Point to the clue first, then the period.
▲ Standard
Five cards. For each one, write your commit, the revealed period, the clue you used, and how sure the evidence lets us be. Use a separate row for each card so the parts stay in order.
★ Stretch
Six cards. Then compare two kinds of evidence, such as a burial and a printed book, and judge which lets us be more sure about a date. A judgement that names a limit is still a judgement.
Check yourself: did you commit before lifting each flap?
Check yourself: does every row name the clue you used?
Check yourself: is every claim the size of its evidence, not bigger?
⏸ Pens down — quick partner check!
Half way through: stop, swap with a partner, and check one thing on the list above together. Then carry on.
WAGOLL — what a good one looks like
Here is a finished row: the painted court roll. Commit: long ago, before 1700. Revealed: 1511. Clue: the clothes and the horses look Tudor. How sure: very, because the roll is dated and the pay records agree. Four parts. One line. And someone who has never seen the card can check it.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
Lundy Loop — Your Voice in This Lesson
🚪 SPACE
Space is room to take part;
SPACE stays available.
📣 VOICE
VOICE is received.
👥 AUDIENCE
AUDIENCE names back exactly.
⭐ INFLUENCE
INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.
Exit Ticket — Audience receives; influence changes something
Read one row to a partner or to an adult. The listener says back how sure they heard you were, in their own words.
Did the listener hear very where you meant fairly? Then change that one word. That change is your influence. It belongs to you, not to them.
Next week you will judge how significant one person or event was, using evidence like this. Keep your record. It will help you then.
✅ Complete
Hand in your record and tick the learner confirmation on your sheet. That is the lesson done.
SPACE stays available. VOICE is received. AUDIENCE names back exactly. INFLUENCE changes one real next action.