Significant individuals

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

History flows like a river, sometimes quiet and unobtrusive, sometimes a raging torrent with wide-ranging effects on the world around us. It is punctuated by momentous events and significant individuals, who impact on its direction and form for the future. As a curriculum subject, history can be approached through significant individuals. Incredible light-bulb moments for pupils come when links are made between past events centred on significant individuals and the present; when they recognize how our traditions and lifestyles were born and have often been formed by the actions of a famous person from the past.

One such person was William Brookes of Wenlock, Shropshire whose Wenlock Olympics inspired and led to the first modern Olympic Games of 1896...