The school provides a general and specialist education to students from the greater Fremantle area, and intake for gifted and talented arts and soccer programmes from across Western Australia.

[2] The school was named to commemorate John Curtin, the late local federal MP and 14th Prime Minister of Australia.

[5][6] John Curtin has elements of an earlier education building campaign on the site, a two-storey brick Manual Trades Block that was constructed circa 1943 after an existing Fremantle Technical School manual arts building in South Terrace was taken over for defence purposes in 1941 and in view of the then proposals for the erection of a new Fremantle Technical High School.

[5] On 12 November 2006 John Curtin College of the Arts hosted a gathering for the school community to celebrate its 50th year of operation.

[5] Following the entrance of Japan into World War II and the threat of attack on Australia, four anti-aircraft gun emplacements were established on the portion of the site bounded by Ellen and East streets.

Throughout the war years the former cemetery was a base camp used by the troops who manned the guns and was a significant part of Fortress Fremantle for the defence of the port.