Empire and migration: 38-lesson plan
This resource is an introduction for teachers to a thematic approach to teaching a unit on the British Empire and migration. It was designed for AQA’s ‘Migration, empires and the people’ unit, but it would serve for any key stage 3 or key stage 4 enquiry into the British Empire.
The resource explores:
- the rationale for a thematic approach
- the suggested themes and lessons for a thematic approach
- how to pre-empt misconceptions that may arise from a thematic approach.
It features a plan for 38 lessons, covering four themes. The factor overview resource for each theme is available on the Teachit site:
The plan also identifies which specification content might be included in each lesson and which hinterland content might be applicable too.
The PowerPoint slide provides a template to help situate each lesson on a timeline.
A guide to AQA’s question styles for this unit, with model answers and walk-throughs for students, is also available on the site.
An extract from this resource:
... the thematic approach is beneficial not only to the 16-mark essay but also to aiding students in complex thinking, as required to access Level 4 of the AQA mark scheme. By studying the unit thematically, students can use these themes to help frame short- and long-term significance, and the themes can serve as springboards for finding suitable similarities to discuss in the comparison question.
