We expect every child to develop a strong understanding of the past and its impact on the present. Our history curriculum is designed to reflect our school community and inspire curiosity. Children learn to think critically, ask meaningful questions, and analyse evidence—gaining the confidence to understand the world and shape its future.

At St. John’s we strive to deliver a history curriculum that ignites children’s curiosity and enables them to gain a secure knowledge and understanding about Britain’s past and the wider world. By finding out about how and why the world, our country, culture and local community have developed over time, children will understand how the past influences the present.

Children explore history at a local, national and international level from the prehistoric era through to the twentieth century. The St John’s History curriculum offers the opportunity to explore different peoples’ perspectives and think critically about the world in which they live. Children are encouraged to ask perceptive questions, analyse sources of evidence and interpret findings. 

The curriculum is sequenced in a way that gives children a broad understanding of chronological development and makes links between various periods of History to enable every child to know more, remember more and understand more. Units of work are carefully selected from the national curriculum to reflect our children’s background and cultures as well as our local and wider community. 

We endeavour to develop children’s understanding of the following substantive key concepts: Power, Legacy, Settlements, Culture and Society.

These concepts are developed progressively through the curriculum to create historians who are confident in communicating their views, both in writing and orally.  Each unit is built towards a challenging historical question which is linked to a key historical concept, as well as developing the identified disciplinary concepts. These have been identified as: cause and consequence, continuity and change, diversity, significance, historical interpretation and chronological understanding. 

A planned approach to develop historical skills has also been considered within each unit of study. All planned sequences of learning incorporate the following skills: Historical enquiry, Communicating about the Past and Historical Vocabulary.