History at key stages 1 and 2    (Year 3/4)

Discuss with the children how people choose a partner and why they marry. Explain that Henry VIII was a member of the Tudor royal family and help the children to locate the Tudors on the class time line. Tell the story of Henry VIII and his six wives, using pictures and slides.
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Section 2: What was Henry VIII like as a person?

Give the children a written description of Henry and ask them to underline the key descriptive words. Ask them to compare these words with what they have already heard about Henry VIII.

Give the children portraits of Henry VIII. Tell them to use the portraits to ask and answer as many questions as they can about the king's appearance.

Give the children some words describing Henry's character, eg dignified, fierce. Encourage them to add their own words. Ask the children to decide whether they think the portrait suggests the king had these attributes.

Use questions and answers to recap. Ask the children to write a brief description of Henry or annotate a picture to show his character.
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Section 3: What did Henry VIII do all day?

Give the children a list of activities combining those that a Tudor king was expected to do, eg hunting, attending church, signing papers, dining in state, with some that he did not do, eg cutting wood, selling cloth. Ask the children to sort the activities into two categories; those they think the king did and those he did not do.

Ask the children to feed back their decisions and discuss the range of responsibilities of a Tudor monarch.
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Section 4: Why did Henry divorce Catherine of Aragon?

Give the children a text with a simple description of Henry's problems, eg the need for a son, Catherine's age, the need for money. It should also include a few solutions. Ask the children to identify the problems. Help the children place the problems in order of importance and to suggest solutions and produce a grid with two columns: problems and solutions.
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Section 5: Did marrying Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour solve Henry's problems?

Tell the story of Anne Boleyn.

Ask the children to look at the list of Henry's problems and their grid with problems and solutions. Give them simple information about the marriage to Anne Boleyn and ask them to decide if the marriage solved any of Henry's problems. Ask them to add another column to their grids called: 'Did the solution work?'

Tell the story of Jane Seymour and the birth of Edward. Explain that although the birth of Edward seemed to solve one of Henry's problems, on Jane's death Henry still had a problem.
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Section 6: Why did the marriage to Anne of Cleves fail?

Explain that friendships between countries were helped by marriages between members of important families from different countries.

Give the children information packs about Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. Ask half the class to use these to produce a picture and description of Anne of Cleves, and the other half to do the same for Henry.

Ask the children to read out their descriptions and show their pictures and decide whether Anne of Cleves is a good choice for Henry's next wife.

Tell the story of Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves and discuss why it ended in divorce.
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Section 7: Why did Henry marry Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr?

Brainstorm what the children already know about Henry VIII. Ask them to write statement cards about Henry VIII that can be pinned to a wall display. Discuss with the children what they know and their evidence for their statements.

Ask the children to decide what else they would like to find out. Produce structured questions for them to answer, eg Who looked after Henry's children? Who else did Henry marry? What did Henry's children look like?

Give them a range of information sources and ask them to find the answers. Develop further statement cards to add to the display.

Tell the stories of Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, explaining why Henry married them. Develop statement cards about these marriages for the display.
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Section 8: Why did Henry marry six times?

Ask the children to suggest reasons why Henry married six times, eg need for alliances, falling in love, need for power, money. Ask them to list the reasons in order of importance.
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