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Students examine the continuity and change in the beliefs about the cause of illness in Renaissance England. Includes information about the discoveries of William Harvey, Thomas Sydenham and Robert Hooke and an explanation of how religious and supernatural beliefs continued.

UPDATED & RE-VAMPED CONTENT IN LINE WITH THE 2026 SPEC

The 21 slide fully resourced lesson contains activities, tasks, practice exam questions, printable resources and all background knowledge:

• Slide 1: Title slide
• Slide 2: Warm Up - Students discuss how their modern beliefs and attitudes about the world might challenge the more traditional attitudes held by their parents.
• Slide 3-4: Recap - A 10 question quiz covering beliefs about the cause of illness in Medieval England. Contains all answers.
• Slide 5: Background information about Renaissance England.
• Slide 6: Starter Source Analysis - A source from Thomas Sydenham with questions about Sydenham’s new beliefs and how they challenged the existing beliefs.
• Slide 7: Background information about the work of Thomas Sydenham.
• Slide 8-10: Task 1 - Students presented with a printable worksheet which contains statements about Renaissance beliefs about the cause of illness. Students need to sort them into new ideas or old. Printable resources and answers included.
• Slide 11: Task 2 - Students prompted to complete a role play/discussion/debate between someone with traditional Medieval views and new Renaissance beliefs about the cause of illness.
• Slide 12: Task 3 - Students presented with 6 sentence starters from which they have to explain the impact of key developments.
• Slide 13: Challenge questions
• Slide 14: Learning Review 1 - Which beliefs continued and which changed? Includes challenge task.
• Slide 15-16: Learning Review 2 - A gap fill activity for students to recap basic knowledge from the lesson. Answers provided.
• Slide 17: Lesson fact sheet
• Slide 18: EXAM FOCUS - Two examples of the similarity and difference question with suggested sentence starters.
• Slide 19: EXAM FOCUS - An example of a 12 mark ‘Explain why’ question.
• Slide 20: Information sheet showing all the factors which influenced continuity and change in Medicine in Britain.
• Slide 21: More from RA Resources

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