History Curriculum

“The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future ”

Theodore Roosevelt

Our Intent

At St John’s we are historians!

Our history curriculum is ambitious and has been carefully crafted to ensure our pupils develop a sense of who they are locally, nationally and globally. We want our pupils to go out into the world with a sense of pride in their own identity and an appreciation of their place and time.

Our pupils have a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We encourage our pupils to be curious and ask questions about the process of change, the complexity of people’s lives, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups.

We believe that our pupils need to be actively involved in making sense of their learning and therefore an enquiry approach has been implemented, encouraging higher-order thinking and allowing our children to explore in a way that is meaningful to them. Within each year group, history learning is revisited in a progressive manner, to ensure knowledge, skills and concepts are firmly embedded and subject specific vocabulary is used in context.

Our history curriculum enables our pupils to develop their understanding of the key historical concepts of chronology, change and development, cause and effect and significance and interpretation. In every year group, our pupils visit a local museum or have an in-school visitor to bring their history learning to life. We want our children to remember their history fieldtrips, to cherish these memories and embrace the opportunities they are presented with!

By the time they leave us, we want our children to love history, to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be archivists, museum curators, archaeologists or research analysts!

We believe that: “We are guided by God to be the best we can be”.

History Policy
History Progression
History Long Term Plan

History at St. John’s

Year 3 – Raby Castle

Year 6 – Seahouses 2026

Year 2 – Captain Cook Museum

Year 4 – Roman Day