Rainhill High School has its origins in the former separate Whiston County Secondary Schools for Boys and Girls which used to occupy a site in Portico Lane. These two well respected schools, which eventually merged on the 'old site' to form a co-educational comprehensive school with a sixth form, served several generations of pupils, many of whom now send their children to Rainhill High.

Faced with falling rolls, Knowsley found the school surplus to requirements and St Helens, which did not have enough secondary school places, leased the whole school from Knowsley for five years. On completion of the transfer the school was renamed "Rainhill High School". This unique leasing arrangement provided a stop-gap answer to the problem which St Helens faced but it was obvious that the long term solution lay in building a new school to serve the families of Rainhill and neighbouring areas.

The 'new school' was built between 1980 and 1987 on land formerly owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese. The 'new' Rainhill High School can truly be described as a purpose-built comprehensive school; the buildings are of good quality and the school grounds are pleasant and impressive.

Rainhill High is widely recognised as a successful school with 1400 pupils, over 200 of whom are in the thriving sixth form. The school achieves excellent examination results at GCSE and 'A' level and many of our pupils also benefit from a wide range of extra-curricular activities and a unique system of continuous pastoral care.

Pupil outcomes are impressive with a very high proportion of our Year 11 students continuing in education, many of them in our own sixth form. Every year many of our pupils secure places on the university courses of their choice, including Oxford and Cambridge. Many achieve training places with major companies or progress to courses in further education which provide a firm basis for their future careers. We feel that we are providing our community with a standard of service which our predecessors at the 'old' schools would have been proud of; but the new school can actually achieve more than the old because we do not have to operate in the shadow of a selective system: we are a truly comprehensive school and proud of it.