The school was founded in 1976, and named after Nobel Prize winning scientist Sir William Ramsay, who lived in Hazlemere until his death in 1916. Sir William Ramsay has three houses: Blake, Nash and Hepworth. Each form is an individual house.

It was awarded specialist school status as a Visual Arts College by the Department for Education and Skills in September 2000.^[3]

On 9 January 2004, a fifteen-year-old pupil stabbed a fellow pupil after she intervened when he threatened his ex-girlfriend with a seven-inch steak knife.^[4]

On the morning of 27 January 2007, two men entered the school and were regarded as suspicious. Pupils were held in classrooms and the school was placed on lockdown while a police helicopter and canine team searched the surrounding area. Two men were later arrested.^[5]

In August 2011 the school became an Academy.^[6]

In 2007, the school opened a new performing arts centre. The first performance was the musical Grease.^[7]

In 2017 a new complex housing science labs, maths rooms, and a sixth form centre was opened by alumna Leigh-Anne Pinnock.

Until the beginning of the 2012–13 academic year, the head teacher was Gaynor Comber. She was succeeded by Mark Mayne, who was in the role until the 2016–17 academic year. Deputy headteacher Chris Carter became acting head until the appointment of Christine McLintock for the 2017–18 academic year. McClintock resigned her role of Executive Headteacher after five years, and was succeeded by Paul Ramsey.^[8]

In June 2022, Sir William Ramsay School underwent a full Ofsted inspection, where it was rated 'Inadequate', following a monitoring visit in 2021. The report^[9] described the arrangements for safeguarding as "not effective" and indicated that the school has "high incidence of serious behaviour incidents". In addition, the curriculum was described as "not always delivered well" in some subjects. According to the inspection report, the school has a good Sixth Form provision with high quality facilities for students to use.

Ofsted completed a further monitoring inspection of Sir William Ramsay School in March 2023. The report found that the school "remains inadequate and has serious weaknesses" despite a "strengthened" safeguarding team and improvements to behaviour.^[10]

Ramsay has a recently built drama building containing media and music classrooms and private practising rooms. It also has a lift for anyone with a disability, the school assembly hall and classrooms for languages. The science and math block has 18 classrooms in total, 10 for science and 8 for Maths, there is a lift included. The rest of the school is one level. There is also a building each for ICT, art technologies and humanities, 2 buildings for English, a sports hall, fitness studio and tennis courts for P.E. There is also a canteen, a drama theatre, a hearing impaired unit, a disabled unit and a playing field.

On starting at the school, year sevens get to do Spanish which is usually different from primary schools. All lessons are one hour long and follow a two-week timetable, with essential lessons, e.g. Maths, English and Science featuring the most. GCSEs are chosen in year 9 with Maths, Science, English, P.E. and PSHE as compulsory subjects. The school offers four techs; Textiles, Resistant Materials, Engineering and Food Tech. The school also offers many extra curriculum clubs.

The school has a unit for deaf pupils, known as the HARP and a unit for disabled and special needs pupils known as the SEN. The majority of the school is on one level and has many ramps making it helpful for disabled pupils. The pupils enrolled in the SEN and HARP are often merged into an ordinary classroom with an LSA, so are also registered on the normal register, though they may go back to SEN occasionally instead of doing a lesson. SEN pupils may also sometimes do private lessons in subjects with only a few other pupils who are also struggling with that lesson. Those pupils are not necessarily always SEN.

• Adam Paul Harvey, actor who played Tom Brake in Night and Day, Ralph Henshaw in Bedtime and Nathan Boothe in Where the Heart Is. More recently he has acted in two films: My Brother Tom (2001) and Son of Rambow (2007).
• Leigh-Anne Pinnock, former Head Girl and member of X Factor 2011 winners Little Mix.^[11]