Our History

The John Roan School has a proud history of educating the young people of Greenwich for almost 400 years.

The John Roan School was founded in Greenwich through the will of John Roan (c1602-1644), Yeoman of Harriers to King Charles I and/or Yeoman of His Majesty's Greyhounds. This endowed a school to educate poor children from east Greenwich up to the age of fifteen including money towards the childrens' clothing. It was initially known as the Greycoat School of the Foundation of Mr John Roan with the first schoolmaster appointed in 1690. A sister school for the education of girls was set up in 1814. The Roan School for Boys was the first occupant of the Maze Hill site in 1927. The school is now co-educational with a sister site at Westcombe Park. The foundation stone was laid by Sir George Hume, the chairman of London County Council in 1926 and it was opened in 1927, by the Right Honourable HAL Fisher, MP (historian and politican) who was then the Warden of New College Oxford, although curiously the building does not appear to have been completed until the following year (a further ceremony was held in 1928.) There have been some additions to the premises since then, most notably the addition of a technical block to the north and the infilling of the inner courts to provide more classrooms in the 1960s and latterly, in the 1980s, provision of external ramps and a lift to facilitate disabled access.