Significant individuals: how did they change the world?
Downloads can take a few minutes, especially for larger files or slower connections.
Why this why now
This unit uses and builds on pupils' knowledge of contrasting periods that they built in the Year 1 unit on the changes to seafaring over time. It also builds on what pupils have learnt about rulers and their behaviours in units on traditional stories and significant rulers, showing how rulers can be either barriers to or supporters of change. This unit prepares pupils for later studies in key stage 3 about how individuals and groups have fought for or achieved change.
Prior knowledge requirements
- An awareness of how the public can respond to certain events or developments, as introduced in 'Changes within living memory: what changed during Elizabeth II's lifetime?'
- A broad awareness the past is not unified, and contains multiple societies, places and people at different times.
- A basic ability to recognise that past people, events and societies were not always contemporaneous.
- An awareness that historians are sometimes interested in how things changed in the past.
- An awareness of how we study the lives of some individuals because of their actions or thoughts.
Why this why now
This unit uses and builds on pupils' knowledge of contrasting periods that they built in the Year 1 unit on the changes to seafaring over time. It also builds on what pupils have learnt about rulers and their behaviours in units on traditional stories and significant rulers, showing how rulers can be either barriers to or supporters of change. This unit prepares pupils for later studies in key stage 3 about how individuals and groups have fought for or achieved change.
Prior knowledge requirements
- An awareness of how the public can respond to certain events or developments, as introduced in 'Changes within living memory: what changed during Elizabeth II's lifetime?'
- A broad awareness the past is not unified, and contains multiple societies, places and people at different times.
- A basic ability to recognise that past people, events and societies were not always contemporaneous.
- An awareness that historians are sometimes interested in how things changed in the past.
- An awareness of how we study the lives of some individuals because of their actions or thoughts.
Significant individuals: how did they change the world?
These stories of significant individuals from different periods help students understand when change has occurred due to individual agency. They learn about the diversity of those who have brought about change and gain a broader sense of history and curiosity about the past.
6 lessons in unit
slide decks, worksheet PDFs, quizzes and lesson overviews. You can select individual lessons from the Significant individuals: how did they change the world? unit and download the resources you need, or download the entire unit now. See every unit listed in our primary history curriculum and discover more of our teaching resources for primary history programmes.