Engineer William Bayley Bray (1812–1885) arrived in Canterbury in January 1851 on the Duke of Bronte and built a homestead at the head of the Avon River / Ōtākaro in an area with many springs, and he thus called it Avonhead.

The area itself was referred to as Avonwood in early records,[4] but Avonhead became the common term and this was formally adopted by the Waimairi County Council 1959.

[15] Although located within Avonhead, the school zone also includes sections of the nearby suburbs of Ilam and Sockburn.

The school currently has 22 classrooms, a result of construction work undertaken to address issues of overcrowding which had been previously faced.

[19] In the same year, there were also new crawling tunnels constructed near the junior playground replacing a birch tree.

Located next to the Avonhead Mall, Merrin School has a roll of 505 students as of November 2024.