Discovering Tudor England

Last year I worked with a Primary School in South Shields to deliver  History through Drama. Year 5's topic was  The Tudors. The opportunity for drama work was great,  so we  organised  the  6 weeks work into three separate topics, one for each of the three classes in the year group. Each class had their unique contribution to a final performance day where all three classes could learn and be entertained by each other.

                                                      'Lavender, Candles & Chickens

Day in the life of  country folk''

One of the topics looked at rural Tudor life which meant an introduction to some unusual activities which told us about life in those time......a butcher pulling teeth, laundry using paddles,children being scare crows, hunting with a falcon. 

Then there was the interesting way they dealt with health hazards of the times. Taking the lid of Tudor life in this way makes every detail of research useful. We all know how fascinated children get about strange illnesses and even stranger cures so we devised a game of 'Doctor Doctor' with one half of the class acting out the demise while the others became the apothecaries and herbalists.

I introduced the idea of  the way disease could pass from town to country by with the character of Lady  Penelope's maid and news of 'the plague' in London

Rural life means also rural entertainment which lead to recreating market places and Tudor music and dance. Learning the 'Horses Brawl' ,an authentic dance of  times, gave the children a chance to see the other sides of peoples lives.

While this class  were concentrating on on rural life another took on the task of  life at sea on board one of Sir Drake's ships. This meant a lot of archetype characters and creating a dance drama of the historic 'Singing of The King of Spain's Beard'. This time the dance was a hornpipe and the song a sea shanty.

The third class took on high and low status life of London in Tudor times. Shakespeare's 'Globe' theatre was the natural setting to act out this theme where the division of class was so graphic.

We cast the characters of the  drama using a pack of cards which meant  boy's may get girls parts and visa versa which was true to the time and  the class loved all this playing with stereotypes. It particularly fitted the recreation of the melodrama of Pyramus and Thisbe from 'Midsummer's Nights Dream'

When you see young people getting so much out of learning this way it surely proves the necessity of making history into a physical story telling experience. This way you awaken an interest which could last beyond school years.

All this was made possible through the financial and administrative support of The Custom's House South Shields who I continue to be  grateful to.