Newtown had two secondary schools – Newtown Girls' Grammar School and Newtown Boys' Grammar School – which stood opposite the Railway Station, where the Somerfield's store now is.

Even before the Second World War ended in 1945 an Education Act had been passed that required all children to stay in school until they were 15 years old.

To enable this to happen two new secondary schools were established in Newtown.

A Secondary Modern School was opened in part of Penygloddfa School, spilling over into an old warehouse in Bryn Street.

Also the County Technical School was established. Their pupils occupied the old Llanllwchaiarn Church School (now Powys Theatre) and another part of the old warehouse in Bryn Street.

These arrangements were obviously unsatisfactory, so plans began to evolve to build new schools to house the Secondary Modern and Technical Schools on the same campus.

The first site chosen was what is now The Park, in the town centre, but the town council vigorously opposed this idea as they wanted to keep the land as public open space.

Eventually it was decided to build the school on what were known as the Lucky Fields on Dolfor Road.

At the time the site was occupied by a disused army camp that had been built during the war.

Work began early in 1953, but as the building arose there was a change of plan. It was decided that the new school should be for the Secondary Modern and Grammar Schools, and the Technical School, which by then had moved into the army huts on the site of the new schools, should use the buildings to be vacated by the Grammar Schools opposite the station.

The new schools were opened by Sir Edward Boyle, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, on September 17, 1957.

By that time it had been decided that all the town's secondary schooling should eventually be amalgamated to form a single school so the name of the new school had reflect that decision and Sir Edward formally named it Newtown High School. In 1960 the County Technical School was reorganised.

Pupils under 16 were to go to the High School and those over 16 stayed at the re-named Montgomeryshire College of Further Education.

Even then the High School was not a single comprehensive school. The Boys' and Girls' Grammar Schools had remained separate.

It was not until the two headteachers, Mr EG Lewis and Miss Vivien Cutting, retired simultaneously in 1964 that the schools were united under one head, Mr R Nelson Jones.

Since then the school has continued to develop, with new buildings and facilities being added allowing it to offer a range of education and opportunities unimagined by those first pupils who stepped over its threshold 50 years ago.

The current head is Judith Pryce.

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