The authors of this article take a well-known structural framework for students’ thinking about the Reformation and give it a twist. Their Tudor religious rollercoaster is informed by local visits in their setting in Guernsey – an area where the local picture was not quite the same as the national one. Their Year 8s were able to place their local narrative into its wider national and international frameworks. Carey and Rowson also examine the tricky issue of how to structure a particular chunk of learning so that students have access to what they need to know, and are not overwhelmed; so students have access to overview and depth, and can see the relationships between them; and also so students use local visits not just as disconnected extras but as integral parts of their curriculum.