The England’s Immigrants Project Teacher Scholar Scheme 2016

Were there really aliens living among the population of England in the 15th century?

Lesson 1

Welcome!Listen to the music and get ready to go

back in time on the history timeline journey!!

First task: •Draw an alien (‘What- has my teacher gone mad- isn’t this a HISTORY lesson??’)•Fold the paper in half after you have named it and hand it to your teacher

Your turn to have a think

• Why have you been asked to draw an alien?• How do these aliens fit into the history

lesson?• Chat to your partner and come up with a

brilliant idea- feel free to take a risk on this one!

Before we get going, are you clear on when the medieval period was?

• We cover a lot of different historical periods in school, sometimes it can get confusing.

• Sometimes people get confused e.g.–Were the Romans medieval? –What about the Georgians?

• Let’s start by placing the medieval period on a timeline of the history we know

The Romans

The Stuarts

The Vikings

The Georgians

The Anglo Saxons

The Victorians Britain since the 1930s

The Tudors

2012 AD

43 AD

1300 BC800 AD

1000 AD

1509 AD1605 AD

1722 AD

1837 AD1930 AD

1 ADThe Egyptians

The Olympics

The Birth of Jesus

The Medieval Period

So if there were aliens in medieval England, what did they look like?

Did your aliens look like this?

Aliens in medieval England!!!• Actually, there were aliens in

Britain in the medieval period. • Between the years 1330 and

1550 there were 17194 Aliens in London alone.

• Although they probably looked more like this than our aliens…

• So if aliens were not from outer space then who were they and where were they from?

Medieval aliens

• Alien really means ‘other’

• So in medieval England aliens were basically foreigners

• We know quite a lot about these aliens…

Medieval aliens• You have seen there were many

aliens in London – what about elsewhere in the country?

• Use the England’s Immigrants database to find out …– How many aliens were there in

Norfolk in the 1440s?– What places did the aliens come

from? – Is this figure very different in

different periods? • Repeat this investigation for a few

other places– you choose which ones!

Looking closer at the aliens… • Let’s look more closely at our investigation:• Why were the aliens in England and what were they doing?• Use the activity sheet to read the letter from Patrick the

clergyman about aliens in London and Norwich. • Use the database to decide whether Patrick is a reliable

source of information. • Write some reports of your own and see if you can do a

better job than Patrick.

Oh, and by the way, the aliens were not all men!

• Let’s have a look at some other females on the database• Follow the instructions • Open the database again• www.englandsimmigrants.com• Click on BROWSE• Click on FEMALE under GENDER ….

What can we learn about female aliens?

• How many alien women are there on the database which covers 1300-1550? • Where do they seem to be living?• What is their social status?• What jobs do they do?

Finally, write a short paragraph to follow this starter sentence…

• Actually there were aliens in medieval England, but it is probably not what you are thinking. What historians mean is…