Over the years it has taken both day and weekly boarding pupils from the military garrisons of Buckeburg, Detmold, Hameln, Herford, Hohne, Nienburg, Bunde, Hanover, Hildesheim, Minden, Osnabrück (following closure of Edinburgh School in Munster), Paderborn, and Rinteln.

The school has its beginnings from "Operation Union", which allowed Army and RAF personnel based in Allied-occupied West Germany to bring their families over.

[4] Housed in a block of buildings along the port, it was formally handed over on 1 July 1947, by the lowering of the Royal Navy's white ensign and the raising of the Union flag.

The 1960s saw a sharp increase in pupil numbers mainly due to the final closure of Lancaster School in the former Osnabrück base.

Following the UK government's Strategic Defence Review in 1998 (updated in 2002), it was decided to withdraw the British forces from Germany by 2020.

The UK Government SDSR of 2010 brought planned the closure of Germany forward to 2018, and with the restructure of the remaining units around Paderborn and Bielefeld Garrisons, this meant that PRS was no longer a viable asset, with King's School in Gütersloh being chosen to become the final secondary school to remain open.

In October 2015, the German Federal Government reopened the site and used the former school buildings accommodation for refugees, with up to 600 residents housed at one time.

Located behind the main school building, it offered a 'home from home' to those students who lived there throughout the week (weekend boarding was not provided).

The drop in numbers prompted SCE to move those day pupils from Detmold (who had previously attended King's School, Gütersloh), to PRS to become weekly boarders.