The school has its origins as the Bedford Row Pupil teacher centre, a private school for girls, in January 1905. Within two years, it also took school leavers other than pupil teachers.[2] The school was taken over by the local council in 1909, moving to its current site in 1914. It operated at a girls school on this site, with a junior house in Shelly Road between 1918 and 1930,[2] apart from an evacuation to New Ollerton, Nottinghamshire in 1941,[2] until it became a girls' grammar school under the changes of the Education Act 1944.
It remained as a grammar school until the local authority reorganised provision in the town along three-tiercomprehensive lines in 1973, when it became a girls' comprehensive high school for students aged 12 to 16. At this time it became known as Gaisford girls' high school.[3]
The school became co-educational in 1982 when it merged with West Tarring Secondary School for boys, then becoming known by its current name.[2]
In 2008, the school became a Trust school under the rules of the Education and Inspections Act 2006.[4] The school converted to academy status in December 2012. From 2015 it became a standard secondary school accepting its first cohort of Year 7 students since the 1973 reorganisation following the change in the age of transfer in Worthing.[5] The school has been rated "good" with outstanding areas on its previous OFSTED inspection in April 2016.
^T P Hudson, ed. (1980). "Worthing: Education". A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 1: Bramber Rape (Southern Part). Victoria County History Series. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
^"Worthing High School". EduBase website. Department for Children, Schools and Families. 2009. Retrieved 17 February 2009.