The school was established in 1969 by German and Swiss parents[2] led by Ingrid Buchholtz, with its first campus located at 1 Barker Road.

Impetus to create a German-language school snowballed in 1966 when a German community suggested collaborating with the Swiss.

[3] The kindergarten was located at Union Church on Kennedy Road, due to the long waiting list.

[3] In 1972 the Hong Kong Government provided the school with land on Guildford Road,[5] free of charge, with construction of the current upper building beginning in 1973.

By 2007, a permanent second campus location was found in Pok Fu Lam for the Business College, kindergarten and lower primary; in the same year, the school changed its curriculum from the A-level and Abitur system to the IB and DIAP respectively.

It also has a Business College (German Wirtschaftskolleg), which offers Wholesale & Foreign Trade and Transport & Logistics Management training programmes.

[13] The official Primary curriculum of the English Stream offers English/Language, Mathematics, Geography, General Studies, History, Library, Learning Technology, which is known as ICT to students, Music, Physical Education and Science.

Before taking the IB, English International Stream students follow the British education system, completing GCSE and IGCSE examinations at the end of Year 11.

For the IB programme, students are only allowed a maximum of 6 subjects in total, with English and Mathematics being compulsory.

In 2007, the Hong Kong Government awarded GSIS a second campus at 162 Pok Fu Lam Road, Pok Fu Lam, which in 2010 became the new home for the Kindergarten and Lower Primary: Y01 in the English stream, and Deutsche Vorschule (German Preschool) in the German stream.

This decanting site was originally owned and operated by the Wan Chai Kai Fong Welfare Association.

Others were children of mixed marriages, mainly with German, Swiss, or Austrian fathers and spouses who held passports of other countries.

The number of Capital Levy applications, along with the selected classes and year groups, are under the discretion of school management and the board.

[21] GSIS operates a financial aid program, where school fees are reduced for certain students on a case-by-case basis.

House Captains are expected to serve as role models for peers and actively contribute to creating and organising Inter-House Events.

In December 2013, the South China Morning Post reported that GSIS, among at least four other international schools in Hong Kong, was significantly overcharging kindergarten application fees without the government's authorisation.

[25] The Post reported that the school had been accused by a parent of mishandling incidents of sexual harassment in which her 15-year-old daughter had been the victim.

[26] In June 2020 Mr Justice Jonathan Harris ruled it discriminatory to require all elected board directors to speak fluent German.

The discriminatory regulations contravened the Race Discrimination Ordinance, the judge said, because GSIS was within the definition of a club, which was governed by the legislation.