KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
Study people who have made significant contributions both nationally and internationally. Be inspired
by their achievements and try some projects in the same areas of expertise such as art, music,
leadership, science, mathematics and invention. Be inspired by these role models, to dream of what you
might achieve in the future. Choose famous people from the following broad historical eras: Tudor and
Renaissance times (T), Victorian and early Modern times (V), Early Twentieth Century (E) and Late
Twentieth /Early Twentieth Century (L). Each block will allow you to explore one or two changes in
aspects of everyday life.
Block
Block A
Monarchs
(T) Elizabeth 1
(V) Queen
Victoria
[6 sessions]
Key N.C. Objectives
History, English and Art
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Block B
Explorers
(T) Christopher
Columbus
(E) Neil
Armstrong
[7 sessions]
Learn about the lives of significant
individuals in the past who have
contributed to national and international
achievements.
Compare aspects of life, identifying
similarities and differences between
different periods.
Develop a wide range of art and design
techniques in using colour, pattern,
texture, line, shape, form and space.
Use drawing and painting to develop and
share their ideas and imagination.
Compose sentences orally before writing
them.
Re-read what they have written to check
that it makes sense.
Write for different purposes.
Use simple punctuation accurately.
Identify the features of a command.
History, Science, Geography, Art and
English
 Learn about the lives of significant
individuals in the past who have
contributed to national and international
achievements.
 Compare aspects of life, identifying
similarities and differences between
different periods.
 Use simple fieldwork and observational
skills to study the geography of their
school and its grounds.
 Name and locate the world’s seven
continents and five oceans.
 Use aerial photographs and plan
perspectives to recognise landmarks and
basic human and physical features.
 Identify, name, compare and describe the
simple physical properties and suitability
of a variety of everyday materials, for
particular uses.
 Use a range of materials creatively to
design and make products.
 Write for different purposes.
 Segment spoken words into phonemes
Main creative outcomes
Compare the lives and reigns of Elizabeth 1
and Queen Victoria, two fascinating
monarchs. Place their reigns and significant
events within a chronological timeline.
Identify the key roles of a monarch and
further learning about these fascinating
characters through a range of exciting and
interactive activities.
Develop historical knowledge and
understanding of the lives and significance
of Christopher Columbus and Neil
Armstrong. Identify the kit needed for an
expedition and compare the equipment
taken by Columbus and Armstrong on their
voyages. Discover navigation techniques
and learn about the materials used by
Columbus and Armstrong. Identify the
properties of a range of materials for your
own expedition. Go on to describe your own
‘expeditions’ using a range of media.
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.
KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
and represent these by graphemes,
spelling many correctly.
To participate in role-play.
History, Art and English
Block C
Art
(V) Van Gogh
(E) L.S.Lowry
[6 sessions]
Block D
Composers
(V) Mozart
(L) Andrew
Lloyd Weber
[6 sessions]
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Understand about changes within living
memory.
 Learn about the lives of significant
individuals in the past who have
contributed to national and international
achievements, some should be used to
compare aspects of life in different
periods.
 Understand historical concepts such as
continuity and change, cause and
consequence, similarity, difference and
significance, and use them to make
connections, draw contrasts, analyse
trends, frame historically-valid questions
and create their own structured
accounts, including written narratives
and analyses.
 Know about great artists, craft makers
and designers, and understand the
historical and cultural development of
their art forms.
 Learn to develop a wide range of art and
design techniques using colour, pattern,
texture, line, shape, form and space.
 Learn about the work of a range of
artists, craft makers and designers,
describing the differences and similarities
between different practices and
disciplines, and making links to their own
work.
 Learn how to use both familiar and new
punctuation correctly, including full
stops, capital letters, exclamation marks,
question marks, commas for lists,
apostrophes for contracted forms and the
possessive (singular).
Music, History, D&T and English
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Use their voices expressively and
creatively by singing songs and speaking
chants and rhymes.
Play tuned and untuned instruments
musically.
Listen with concentration and
understanding to a range of high-quality
live and recorded music.
Pupils should be taught the lives of
significant individuals in the past who
have contributed to national and
international achievements.
Pupils should be taught about the
differences between ways of life at
different times.
Learn about the life, times and paintings of
Van Gogh and L.S. Lowry and be inspired to
create your own drawings and paintings in
their styles. Generate questions to ask the
artists; research their lives and replicate
their works and styles. Consider the stories
told by their works and become a critical
artist in the process!
Learn about their lives and musical
contributions of Andrew Lloyd Webber and
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Compare their
achievements, timelines and talents. Feel
suspense and excitement and examine how
musical extracts make you feel. Look at the
differences between their eras then be
transported to the theatre to experience the
music they are famous for. Create musical
theatre boxes and work together to create a
class presentation!
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.
KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
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Block E
Activists
(E) Rosa Parks
(L) Malala
Yousafi
[6 sessions]
Pupils should be taught to ask relevant
questions to extend their understanding
and knowledge.
Pupils should be taught to participate in
discussions, presentations,
performances, role play, improvisations
and debates.
Pupils should be taught to select from
and use a range of tools and equipment
to perform practical tasks.
History, English, Drama and Global
Citizenship
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Be taught about events beyond living
memory that are significant globally.
Be taught about the lives of significant
individuals in the past who have
contributed to international
achievements
Understand some of the ways in which
we find out about the past.
To give a well-structured explanation to
express feelings.
To consider and evaluate different view
points.
Identify and explore characters through
drama.
Gain a sense of the wider world.
Begin to understand the connection
between their lives and lives of others.
Awareness that our action have
consequences.
Gain a willingness to co-operate and
participate.
History, English, Science and Drama
Block F
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Medical
(V)Mary Seacole
(E) Jennifer
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Worth
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[6 sessions]
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Pupils should be taught the lives of
significant individuals in the past who
have contributed to national and
international achievements.
Pupils should be taught about changes in
living memory.
Pupils should be taught to articulate and
justify answers, arguments and opinions.
Pupils will be taught to participate in
discussions, presentations,
performances, role play, improvisations
and debates.
Pupils should be taught to give wellstructured descriptions, explanations and
narratives for different purposes,
including for expressing feelings.
Pupils should be taught to: use their
observations and ideas to suggest
answers to questions, describe the
importance for humans of exercise,
eating the right amounts of different
types of food, and hygiene.
Use this block to explain to children that for
many people across the world things
happen that are unfair. Explore the
influential lives of Rosa Parks and Malala
Yousafzai and learn about their courageous
acts against unfairness. Learn how anyone
can try to make a stand against injustice.
Begin with a portrait of Mary Seacole and
decipher clues about this historical figure,
then travel back in time to become the
characters in Jennifer Worth´s books.
Examine the role of nurses today and find
out what qualities are needed to become a
nurse. Discover how to avoid being ill
through healthy eating and exercise and
have the opportunity to create a healthy
food plate! Learn real nursing skills and test
those skills on patient teddy!
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.
KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
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Pupils should be taught to use their
observations and ideas to suggest
answers to questions.
Perform simple tests, record data.
History, D&T, English and Art
Block G
Inventors
(T)Leonardo da
Vinci
(E) The Wright
Brothers
[7 sessions]
 Learn about the lives of significant
individuals in the past who have
contributed to national and international
achievements.
 Generate, develop, model and
communicate their ideas through talking,
drawing, templates, mock-ups and,
where appropriate, information and
communication technology.
 Design purposeful, functional, appealing
products for themselves and other users
based on design criteria.
 Evaluate their ideas and products against
design criteria.
 Select from and use a wide range of
materials and components, according to
their characteristics.
 Explore and use mechanisms in their
products.
 Use drawing to develop and share their
ideas.
 Compose sentences orally before writing
them, to use subordination and coordination (e.g. ‘and’, ‘then’, ‘because’,
‘if’).
 Note down key words and ideas.
 Write for different purposes.
 Evaluate writing with the teacher.
History, Maths, Computing and D&T
 Know where the people and events
Block H
studied fit within a chronological
Mathematicians
framework. Learn about the lives of
(V)Ada Lovelace
significant individuals in the past who
have contributed to national and
(E)Alan Turing
[6 sessions]
international achievements.
 Ask and answer questions. Explore
changes within and beyond living
memory.
 Use technology safely and respectfully,
keeping personal information private.
 Recognise common uses of information
technology beyond school.
 Use technology safely and respectfully
and to purposefully create, organise,
store, manipulate and retrieve digital
content.
 Understand what algorithms are.
 Understand how algorithms are
implemented as programs on digital
devices, and that programs execute by
following precise and unambiguous
instructions.
Meet inventors from history, discuss and
order their inventions on a timeline and
start to ask ‘inventor questions’ that lead to
inventions. Create technical drawings,
design and build models and write tenders
in role as inventors. Children will present
their inventions to the class.
Learn about the key figures of Ada Lovelace
and Alan Turing and learn about the fields
of mathematics in which they worked.
Compare modern-day and older
technologies for calculating and
programming and create a model
mathematical function machine.
Photograph patterns in the environment,
use and create algorithms for common daily
tasks. Finally, create and de-bug algorithms
to solve ‘Bee-Bot’ problems.
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.
KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
 Create and debug simple programs.
 Interpret and construct simple tally charts
and tables.
 Reason mathematically by following a line
of enquiry.
 Develop an argument, justification or
proof using mathematical language.
 Solve problems by applying mathematics
to a variety of routine and non-routine
problems.
 Solve one-step problems that involve
addition and subtraction or multiplication
and division.
 Recognise and use the inverse relationship
between addition and subtraction and use
this to check calculations and solve
missing number problems.
 Work with patterns of shapes, including
those in different orientations.
 Order and arrange combinations of
mathematical objects in patterns and
sequences.
 Design and make purposeful, functional
and appealing products for themselves
and other users.
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.
KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
History, Computing, English and Art
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Block I
Communicators
(pre T)William
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Caxton
(L)Tim BernersLee
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Learn about the lives of significant
individuals in the past who have
contributed to national and international
achievements in communication.
Compare aspects of life in different
periods through the comparison of
significant individuals and developments
in communication.
Use technology purposefully to create,
organise, store, manipulate and retrieve
digital content in the form of a book
review blog/website.
Recognise common uses of information
technology beyond school such as book
review sites.
Discuss and express views about a wide
range of texts.
Write a book review.
Compose a book review orally before
writing it.
Develop a wide range of art and design
techniques in using colour, pattern,
texture, line, shape, form and space.
Meet William Caxton and Tim Berners-Lee
and discover how they both changed the
way we communicate. Journey back
through time to discover how people
recreated and printed text in the past. Try
out a variety of ways to reproduce your
writing for mass consumption. Create edible
illuminated manuscripts and your own
printing press. Go on to create an online
blog or website.
History, Geography, Science and Art
Block J
Ice explorers
(V)Shackleton
(E)Tensing
Norgay
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Research the polar expeditions of these two
pioneers. Follow their journeys and
Know where the people and events they
understand what they needed to take on an
study fit within a chronological
framework and identify similarities and
expedition in cold extreme conditions. Find
differences between ways of life in
out about the development of materials and
different periods.
Know the lives of significant individuals in portable communication and carry out
the past who have contributed to
insulation experiments to design a good
national and international achievements.
polar jacket.
Name and locate some of the world’s
continents and oceans.
Think scientifically, ask simple questions
and recognise that they can be answered
in different ways. Observe closely, using
simple equipment and performing simple
tests.
Use their observations and ideas to
suggest answers to questions, and gather
and record data to help in answering
questions.
Know about the work of other artists,
and making links to their own work.
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.
KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
Block K
Sports
(E)Jesse Owens
(L) Ellie
Simmonds
History, Computing, English and PE
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Be taught about the lives of significant
individuals in the past who have
contributed to national and international
achievements.
Know where the people and events they
study fit within a chronological
framework and identify similarities and
differences between ways of life in
different periods.
Be taught to use technology purposefully
to create, organise, store, manipulate
and retrieve digital content.
Be taught to participate in discussions,
presentations, performances, role play,
improvisations and debates.
Be taught to master basic movements
including running, jumping, throwing and
catching, as well as developing balance,
agility and co-ordination, and begin to
apply these in a range of activities.
Learn about the lives and achievements of
the athletes Jesse Owens and Ellie Simmonds,
including typical days in their lives. Learn
about the key changes and developments in
sport from 1936 to the present, take part in
exercises and organise an alternative
Olympics – The Vegetable Olympics! Plan this
event, present ideas, make vegetable Olympic
flags, participate in the grand event and
develop a final victory parade.
History, English, Art, Music and D&T.
Block L
Authors
(T)Shakespeare
(L)J.K. Rowling
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[7 sessions]
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Be inspired by the lives of William
Shakespeare and J. K. Rowling. Compare their
To understand the lives of significant
timelines, and compare the technologies they
individuals in the past who have
contributed to national and international would have used to write their books. Study
achievements.
fantasy characters the authors created and
To understand historical concepts such as
make your own fantasy stories about a
continuity and change, cause and
consequence, similarity, difference and
magical object. Learn about the café where
significance, and use them to make
Rowling wrote and create a writers’ café in
connections, draw contrasts, analyse
the classroom. Discuss what you would write,
trends, frame historically-valid questions
and create their own structured
before making your own books and writing
accounts, including written narratives
your own fantastic stories.
and analyses.
To understand the methods of historical
enquiry, including how evidence is used
rigorously to make historical claims, and
discern how and why contrasting
arguments and interpretations of the
past have been constructed.
To gain historical perspective by placing
their growing knowledge into different
contexts, understanding the connections
between local, regional, national and
international history.
To become increasingly familiar with and
retelling a wider range of stories, fairy
stories and traditional tales.
To understand both the books they can
already read accurately and fluently and
those they listen to by drawing on what
they already know or on background
information and vocabulary provided by
the teacher.
To use spoken language to develop
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.
KS1 Topic Overview: Famous for more than five minutes
understanding through speculating,
hypothesising, imagining and exploring
ideas.
 To speak audibly and fluently with an
increasing command of Standard English.
 To participate in discussions,
presentations, performances, role play,
improvisations and debates.
 To gain, maintain and monitor the
interest of the listener(s).
 To select from and use a range of tools
and equipment to perform practical tasks
[for example, cutting, shaping, joining
and finishing].
 To play tuned and untuned instruments
musically.
 To use a range of materials creatively to
design and make products; To develop a
wide range of art and design techniques
in using colour, pattern, texture, line,
shape, form and space.
© Hamilton Trust. This activity may be adapted for use by a teacher in his/her own class. It may not be reproduced for any other purpose.
We refer you to our warning, at the foot of the block overview, about links to other websites.