Year 7 are near the end of their medieval England unit, and next lesson they will argue whether the Black Death was the most significant event of the period. The teacher shows an eight-minute documentary clip, vetted in advance, on the board covering how the plague reached England in 1348, its symptoms, how it spread and its effects on villages and the Church. Students take notes in their books under three headings the teacher sets: what people believed caused it, what happened, and what changed afterwards. When the clip ends the teacher brings the class together to clarify the difference between bubonic and pneumonic plague and the rough death toll, between a third and a half of England's population. Students finish by writing a paragraph on the change they think mattered most, such as labour shortages leading to the Statute of Labourers in 1351.
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