A few months after the beginning of the 1856 gold rush in Collingwood, parents were already petitioning the Nelson Board of Education for a school to be set up.

[2] In 1936, it expanded to include a class for secondary students, with an initial roll of 12, and the following year it became a district high school.

In 1978, it became an area school, and undertook a major reconstruction with many new buildings, including a new primary classroom and administration block, at a cost of $265,750.

In 1964, Rear Admiral Richard Washbourn, who had close family connections with Golden Bay, bought the bell of HMS Chevron from the Rosyth Dockyard for £8, and donated it to the school the following year.

Washbourn wrote at the time that "Collingwood is a very remote little settlement one hundred miles from the nearest town and it will do the young good to have some reminder of the world outside.....even if that reminder only serves the mundane purpose of calling them to their studies".