1. Arrange students into groups. Each group needs at least ONE person who has a mobile device.
2. If their phone camera doesn't automatically detect and decode QR codes, ask students to
4. Cut them out and place them around your class / school.
1. Give each group a clipboard and a piece of paper so they can write down the decoded questions and their answers to them.
2. Explain to the students that the codes are hidden around the school. Each team will get ONE point for each question they correctly decode and copy down onto their sheet, and a further TWO points if they can then provide the correct answer and write this down underneath the question.
3. Away they go! The winner is the first team to return with the most correct answers in the time available. This could be within a lesson, or during a lunchbreak, or even over several days!
4. A detailed case study in how to set up a successful QR Scavenger Hunt using this tool can be found here.
Question | Answer |
| 1. In 1961 Mrs Thatcher was appointed as a parliamentary under secretary for pensions and national insurance. She was the youngest woman ever to take on this role. At the 1964 Tory Party Conference she railed against Labour tax policy as a step "not merely towards Socialism but towards Communism". After Labour won the 1964 election, Thatcher held several shadow ministerial positions and voted in favour of decriminalising homosexuality and abortion, but in favour of capital punishment | background | 2. Shadow Spokesperson for Education, and entered the Cabinet as Education Secretary in 1970. Willie Whitelaw, Leader of the House of Commons, warned Heath: "Once she's there we'll never get rid of her”. Thatcher pushed through cuts in education spending and caused public furore when she ended the provision of free milk for primary school children. This earned her the nickname 'Thatcher the Milk Snatcher'. In 1974, during the miner’s strike, Heath's government was forced to impose a three-day working week to conserve electricity. She never forgot the chaos she blamed on the unions. | background | 3. In Opposition she stood against Edward Heath for the party leadership in 1975 and won. Her victory was considered a surprise by many. In 1979, the Conservative Party won the General Election and Thatcher became PM, taking over from James Callaghan. Mrs Thatcher was seen as a right-wing outsider – a surprise candidate with little support. However, she galvanised disillusioned backbenchers with her strong rhetoric and forceful style. In February she was successfully elected Conservative leader. Some thought her leadership wouldn't last. In opposition she broke with consensus politics and moved her party to the right. She was influenced by her colleague Keith Joseph's ideas of free-market Conservatism and of reducing the power of the unions | background | 4. Gillian Peele (Lecturer in Politics – Lady Margaret Hall Oxford) Suggested her winning the party leadership was an accident and people expected her to give him a bloody nose rather than be able to defeat him | leadership contest | 5. Mrs Thatcher portrayed herself as a practical housewife who could sort out the nation’s finances. Her message was simple: “Labour isn’t working.” With the economy in a shambles, the new prime minister knew she had a challenging job to do. She promised to curb the power of the unions and bring stability to the country, while championing free markets and arguing that individuals should be given the power to make their own success. | election campaign | 6. Blended with style of decision making, rhetoric – emphasising common sense. Had a populist ethos | ideology | 7. Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies did not bring inflation under control and increased unemployment which rose to two million. That summer riots broke out in British cities. Polls showed she was the most unpopular prime minister since records began. Thatcher sacked the more moderate Tory ‘wets’ and at the 1980 Conservative party conference vowed to hold firm to her policies. However, when the miners threatened a strike in early 1981, the government did back down | policies | 8. Her ideas of individualism and personal responsibility captured the public's imagination. Millions grabbed the chance to buy their council houses and buy shares in rapidly privatised utilities such as British Rail, British Telecommunications and British Gas. Thatcher also presided over the de-regulation of financial institutions in the City. The economy boomed and London became a massive financial centre. However this success had a downside. Inequality and homelessness increased across Britain. | policies | 9. For much of her career, Margaret Thatcher was a pro-European. Yet later in her premiership her ideas began to change | policies | 10. Local council rates were replaced with a flat Community Charge that everyone paid regardless of income. Margaret Thatcher drove the policy through without consulting her colleagues. Riots and marches erupted across the UK. In March around 100,000 protesters descended on London under the slogan “Can't pay, won't pay”; 340 people were arrested and 113 injured. The policy was unpopular with the public and caused many Tory MPs to lose faith in their prime minister. Again, she refused to give in | policies | 11. Gillian Peale ‘At the beginning she used the cabinet much more as an institution than she was to do later. She showed what strong leadership could do inside the government, inside the cabinet.’ A PRESIDENTIAL/PRIME MINISTERIAL STYLE OF GOVERNMENT | style | 12. She contrasted that with the union leaders who she believed were trying to block economic progress | style | 13. The biggest clash between Thatcher and the Trade Unions was a pitched battle at Orgreave near Sheffield, where 7,000 police fought 5,000 strikers. Mrs Thatcher refused to bow under pressure. She stockpiled coal at power stations and deployed the police to break picket lines. After 12 months the miners were defeated and returned to work. The trade union movement was greatly weakened. Thatcher’s actions were supported by her party and the British Establishment. However she became a hate figure among many working class communities | conflict | 14. More important to both the ‘83 and ‘87 victories was the way the Thatcher governments successfully managed to boost the personal economic expectations of the British electorate. In other words, the public’s own economic circumstances became a very important issue for them and sufficiently large numbers felt that their situation would improve with Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street. This was the perception (if not necessarily the reality) for many voters and it was the foundation on which her electoral successes were built | election | 15. By contrast, the public was often significantly less positive about Margaret Thatcher between general elections, with both her and her party experiencing some of the worst periods of significant unpopularity between elections. Support for the Conservative Party dipped as low as 23% between 1979 and 1983, and to 24% between 1983 and 1987. The percentage of people satisfied with Thatcher’s own performance as prime minister was similarly in the low twenties during the same periods | election | 16. A relatively inexperienced politician, she nonetheless adopted a personal style of indomitable self-confidence and brooked no weakness in herself or her colleagues | leadership | 17. Derisively dubbed the 'Iron Lady' by the Soviet press, she wore the moniker with pride. Her government's free-market policies included trade liberalisation, deregulation, sweeping privatisation, breaking the power of the unions, focus on the individual and the creation of an 'enterprise culture'. 'Thatcherism' has had a profound and lasting economic and social impact on Britain, and still sharply divides opinion to this day. The first PM to serve three consecutive terms (including two 'landslide' victories) she was eventually toppled by her own party following the disastrous imposition of a 'poll tax'. Nonetheless, she is generally considered to be one of the best peace time prime ministers of the 20th Century | leadership | 18. Thatcher's early cabinet meetings could be fraught affairs, there was serious disagreements over government policy and ideology, Some supported the New Right (Thatcher and her allies) and some, who Thatcher called the "wets" supported one nation conservatism. These were allies of the former leader Edward Heath | cabinet | 19. Sir Keith Joseph (Thatcher's ally in cabinet) claimed the "old guard" were quite hostile and Jim Prior "I don't give a damn for sound money" when Thatcher argued not to give teachers a pay rise | cabinet | 20. 1981 budget relations in the cabinet were difficult so Thatcher was able to reshuffle and put in her natural supporters, Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit, Cecil Parkinson, Geoffrey Howe who was deputy prime minister. There was also Willie Whitelaw, Leon Brittan, Norman Lamont, Douglas Hurd and John Major | cabinet. | 21. Key allies left in the 1990s. Geoffrey Howe resigned in 1990, Tebbit left to look after his wife who had been injured in the IRA attack on the Conservative Party Conference. She had no female cabinet ministers but a few junior female ministers. There were very few to choose from within the Conservative Party | cabinet | 22. The impression given by sacked/resigning ministers was that she had a presidential style of government, dominating her cabinet and engaged in prime ministerial government rather than cabinet government | cabinet |
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