It is named after Graham Balfour, son of the Victorian statistician, who became Director of Education in Staffordshire.

It achieved specialist Maths and Computing School status from September 2006.

As of June 2021, the school is building a new set of classrooms, behind the sports hall, which will soon be where modern foreign languages (French, Spanish and German) will be taught.

On 22 July 2016 David Wright retired as Head Teacher and Lesley Beck took over.

In May 2005, then-headteacher David Hill banned charity wristbands due to uniform regulations.