History

‘A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.’  Marcus Garvey ‘

At St John’s Church of England Academy, we wholly embrace our local community and environment and have enhanced our curriculum through ‘Foresters’ Forest’ led enquiries to ensure that our children have a better appreciation and understanding of the uniqueness of The Forest of Dean. 

At St John’s Church of England School, we believe that, through the study of history, children make sense of their world and enrich their understanding of it. Our History Curriculum ensures that children are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of living in the Forest of Dean. We provide children with a knowledge and an understanding of the history of our local area as well as learning about different civilizations in order to understand the similarities and differences between societies and cultures, and the impact of changes on people and place.

Our history curriculum also ensures that children acquire key knowledge about important periods in history and that they develop some of the skills of a historian.

• Know and understand the history of the UK, and how it shaped the world, as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day.
• Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world, such as ancient civilisations; empires and past non-European societies and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’.
• Understand historical concepts, such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use these to analyse.
• Understand the methods of historical enquiry such as using evidence to support arguments.
• Gain a historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history.

The impact and measure of our history curriculum is to ensure that children at St John’s Church of England Academy are equipped with the skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world.