The school initially opened as a junior high school in 1971 and continued to operate as one until becoming a high school in 1974. The campus buildings were constructed by the Mount Newman Mining Company in 1972 before being taken over by the Education Department in 1974.[3]
In 2010 Newman entered into an alliance with Shenton College in Perth, to provide the students with extra motivation and positive role models.[4]
Enrolments at the school have been reasonably steady with 282 students in 2007, 314 in 2008, 323 in 2009, 262 in 2010, 260 in 2011 and 243 in 2012.
The west wing of the school was destroyed by fire in 2014. Eight classrooms were lost during the blaze and teachers and staff evacuated the school as ten firefighters extinguished the blaze.[5] The two storey building housed mathematics classrooms and science laboratories and the damage bill was estimated at A$4 million.[6]
The school won the Tier 3 Champion School at the 2015 Country Week school sport competition.