The school started life in the early part of the twentieth century on Panfield Lane. While co-educational girls and boys were separated, with the school effectively split into two parts. Later with the introduction of the 1944 Education Act the school opened as a newly established secondary modern school and eventually became a fully coeducational school. It was eventually renamed the Margaret Tabor Secondary Modern School. The Tabor part of the name derived from the then local and prominent Tabor family who were major woollen merchants in the 16th century. The family shield was used as the badge of the school, and can still be seen clearly today decorating Bocking bridge near the Old Covent, and on many old buildings in Braintree and Bocking. In September 1971 with the introduction of comprehensive education, the school was merged with the localgrammar school to form The Tabor High School. The new school building was first built around 1992, sharing facilities with Braintree Leisure Centre. Since its opening, it has been added to in stages. The original site contains 30 classrooms and was intended to be the new building for the Senior section of the Tabor Science College located a short walk away. The second stage was completed when the Senior and Middle schools merged and contain a similar number of classrooms, and the Third stage (a new building built for the languages faculty was completed in the summer of 2006, adding an extra 5 classrooms and a new faculty office and locker space. The school replaced the Tabor High School as the secondary school for west Braintree and surrounding villages and the old Senior section site was knocked down in 2004. Steven Clark, its former headteacher, was one of the youngest Headteachers in the United Kingdom. The school converted to Academy status in January 2013. It is now part of the Loxford School Trust based in Ilford. Tabor Academy is also a partner in the Braintree Sixth Form which opened on the Notley High School site in September 2009.
Historically the school developed a reward scheme and mentoring system, developed by Steven Clark, its former Headteacher. The school was first originally split into houses, Brunel, Turner, Austen and Redgrave. Since 2019, these have become Hawking, Farah, Pankhurst and Parks. The School's teacher/student mentoring program for year 11 helps those under-achieving across the year groups.
