Origin

Thomas Rawlins founded the school in 1691.

Grammar school

Rawlins became the Thomas Rawlins Grammar School, also known as Rawlins Grammar School.

Comprehensive

Leicestershire changed to comprehensive schools in the 1960s and 1970s, with its Leicestershire plan, implementing three-tier education with upper schools from the age of 14. The school was known as Rawlins School and Community College from 1967, before being renamed the Rawlins Upper School and Community College in the late 1970s.

In September 2013, Rawlins admitted over 240 year seven students as it moved from 14-19 provision to 11-19.

Academy

On 1 November 2011, Rawlins Community College officially gained academy status and became independent of local authority control. In September 2013 the name of the school became Rawlins Academy.

Houses

At the beginning of the 2006 autumn term, Rawlins was divided into six houses: Bradgate (Purple), Beaumanor (Red), Swithland (Blue), Outwoods (Green), Beacon (Orange), and Buddon (Yellow).

In the 2009 Autumn term there were a vertical tutor groups with students from all years being placed in the same forms. Each form is assigned a house, with about 20 forms from each house. In 2017, Rawlins changed their coaching system to year tutor groups. At this point each year group had 12 forms (2 for each house).

A revamped house system has launched in 2020, with the school reducing to four houses: Ignis (Red), Terra (Green), Aqua (Blue) and Spiritus (Yellow). This meant that there are now 8 tutor groups for each year (2 in each house). The house names are the Latin translations of the words Fire, Earth, Water and Air. These names were chosen by a vote taken part in by the whole school, and the choice of Latin being used was decided upon by the Year 7 group of 2020-2021.

Raw TV

Raw TV broadcasts programs from news to event coverage and general entertainment programming via the Rawlins VLE. The current regular programme is the Raw TV News. Other shows currently air as one-off specials and cover anything from sporting events to Rawlins film makers. Raw TV was featured on BBC East Midlands Today in December 2008 as it is one of the only student run college TV networks in the country. The students that run Raw TV work in partnership with other local schools. Programs are edited by students using Apple Final Cut Pro.