Significant People

From writers to royals, politicians, artists, inventors or campaigners, this selection of sources, based on records held at The National Archives, can be used in the primary classroom to support the National Curriculum element ‘significant individuals’ who have contributed to national or international achievements. The collection is by no means exhaustive but contains some of the popular choices and more for teaching this topic. We hope to add to the collection over time. In addition, we have provided links to other useful resources for ‘significant’ figures.

The sources can be used within any scheme of work which is based on developing a sense of chronology where pupils can see that a particular ‘significant individual’ fits into a time frame. Again working with sources in this way will help pupils to register similarities and differences between aspects of life between periods, for example comparing Queen Anne to Queen Victoria or Florence Nightingale to Edith Cavell. Other ‘people’ sources can be used to consider questions of what we are remembering and why? Have things always been the same? Why have some things changed?