The school opened as Bramhall County Grammar School on Seal Road in 1967 as a co-educational three-form entry grammar school.

It became The Bramhall County High School in 1971 with a ten-form entry with a sixth form. New buildings were added to prepare for the comprehensive intake. Until April 1974 it was administered by Cheshire Education Committee. By 1973 it had a 12-form entry with around 1400 pupils.

With the new LEA of Stockport, it became known as Bramhall High School in 1974. In 1975 it was a 9-form entry school with around 300 in the sixth form, and again was 12-form entry in 1980. Similar to Marple Hall School in Marple, the sixth form was closed in the early 1990s. Since the introduction of academies under the educational reforms of Michael Gove a few secondary schools in Stockport have opened sixth form centres. Bramhall High School started the consultation process into opening a sixth form at the school, with the view of opening in September 2015.^{[2][needs update]}

The school came under the spotlight in 2002, when they asked parents of pupils to pay £10 per month to help following cuts in funding from Stockport Education Authority under the Labour government.^[3]

The school was initially criticised after the installation of unisex toilets in 2000, as a move to tackle bullying and smoking.^[4][5] Subsequently, this development has become accepted Government policy, and the school features on the 'Bog Standard' website,^[6] was selected as a case study in good design by the Design Council and in 2007 was the subject of a follow-up documentary for the BBC Breakfast Programme.^[7] The unisex toilets were segregated again in August 2013.^{[citation needed]}

The school also was the focus of critical news headlines after it introduced sniffer dogs to search the school premises for traces of illegal drugs.^[8]

In March 2007, the school was in the news after banning traditional knotted ties from the school uniform and replacing them with clip-on ties.^[9] A spokesperson for the school later declared that the move to introduce clip-on ties was "more about student appearance than health and safety".^{[citation needed]}

An OFSTED inspection in 2014 rated the school as "Requires improvement" in all categories.^[10] Following the previous OFSTED inspection (2010) the school had been described as "a good and improving school with some outstanding features."^[11]

In September 2019, the school was inspected again.^[12] The inspectors found all aspects to be "Good", or "Outstanding"- but before the inspection referred to the school's 2 year Key Stage 3 curriculum model as 'the elephant in the room'. Ofsted claimed that the requirements of the National Curriculum for a broad and balanced Key Stage 3 syllabus had not been met and repeated the "Requires improvement" judgement.^[13] Two months later a similar judgement depressed the judgement at Impington Village College and has caused other schools and academies to make adjustments to their curriculum model, and rewrite their curriculum intent.^[14]

The percentage of students gaining the top grades has reached the highest ever at 79.4%.^{[needs update]} The percentage achieving English, maths and 5+ A* – C grades rose from last year's 65% to 66% (provisional with remarks pending). At the same time the average points score per student rose by 13 points. This measure indicates students gaining (on average) the equivalent of an extra A* each compared with similar students in 2004. 80% of students achieved at least two C grades in science, and 118 students achieved C or better in 3 separate sciences.^{[15][citation needed]}

• Christine Bottomley, actress
• Richard Burden, former Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield
• Tina Cullen, hockey player
• Sacha Dhawan, actor
• Lauren Drummond, actress
• Daniel Ellis, professional footballer
• Keith Fielding, rugby league footballer (former teacher and deputy headteacher)
• Yvette Fielding, television presenter
• Martin Fry, lead singer with 1980s new romantic band ABC
• Esther Hall, television actor
• Owen Jones, writer^[16]
• Harriet Millar-Mills, England rugby union International^[17]
• Natalie Pike, model and broadcaster^[18]
• Graeme Smith, swimmer
• Ben Spencer, rugby union player
• Kelly Wenham, actress
• Hannah Whelan, Olympic gymnast^[19]
• Aaron Geramipoor, basketball player

• Guardian, 29 January 1974, page 20

• Bramhall High
• EduBase