It was advertised as "a new day and boarding school for girls" which also took boys up to the age of ten and made "special arrangements" for children under seven.

[1] The Corporation acquired the school in connection with Cherwell Hall, a women's teacher training college which it had established on a neighbouring site in 1900 and the two institutions fell under joint management until 1908.

When Miss Dodd took over as headmistress in 1905, Milham was described as consisting of "three picturesque but scholastically inconvenient cottages"[3] and in 1906 the school was rebuilt with a view to accommodating up to 225 pupils; the Corporation also established a boarding house to be "run along Cheltenham lines".

[7] Pupils at this time were taught by a "staff of women graduates"[8] which included student teachers from Cherwell Hall who were expected to spend a term teaching at Milham as part of their practical training; the student teachers were drawn from universities in the United Kingdom, Canada and India.

[9] In 1906, The Times reported that the curriculum made special reference to Oxford's historical and literary associations and that each girl had a school garden.

In 1923, the school was sold to the City of Oxford as the Local Education Authority (LEA), as the governors could not meet the cost of further expansion.

[14] The new school was built on a 16-acre (6.5 ha) site on Marston Road between Harberton Mead (which was its address) and Jack Straw's Lane.

In 1976, Milham became caught up in the debate over the controversial sex education film Growing Up (1971) after a number of parents and pupils contacted the National Viewers and Listener's Association.

[16][23] The former playing field area in front of the school is still owned by Oxford City Council and is now Milham Ford Nature Park.

[24][25] In 2006 Brookes sold part of the site to the south for housing; the new streets were named Mary Price Close and McCabe Place in memory of two former headmistresses.

Catherine Dodd was an educationist and author with a national reputation whose achievements included being the first female academic on the staff of Victoria University of Manchester.

She entered teaching following war service as an officer in the WAAF's Technical (Radar) Branch, becoming headmistress of Burnley High School for Girls for ten years before moving to Milham in 1966.