The school was named after Dorothy Howard, who played a major part in the local community, and was established in 1975 by amalgamating Rainham Boys' Secondary School and Gillingham Boys' Grammar School to form a bi-lateral school. The Howard School became a grant maintained school in 1994 when it left the control of Kent County Council. Following a change of central government it became a foundation school in 1998. Although a foundation school, the school works very closely with Medway Council who, since being set up in 1998 a unitary authority, control education in the Medway Towns. The school became a Specialist Sports College in 2007. In 2008, and again in 2013 and 2016 it received a "good" rating from Ofsted inspectors. This is a change since 2002, when Ofsted inspectors gave a "Serious weaknesses" rating.
The school converted to academy status in October 2014 and further converted to Multi-Academy Trust status in December 2015. Temple Mill Primary School, Strood, joined the Trust at the same time as the conversion to MAT and Deanwood Primary School, Parkwood, Rainham, joined the Trust in September 2016. Waterfront UTC, formerly Medway UTC, a University technical college in Chatham, joined the Trust in 2018.
Houses
The school has five houses named after local castles: Rochester, Bodiam, Upnor, Leeds and Hever. The houses compete against each other in a Festival of Sports for years 7–9.
Buildings
The school buildings are on a campus and include a food technologies department. The L Block, the main and largest building contains reception, a senior staff office, the principal's office, as well as languages, business and sociology classrooms on the ground floor, whilst the first floor is dedicated to Mathematics and the second floor English literature and language. M Block is a student services building also containing art and music classrooms as well as a small gym and PE classroom.
Sports College
The school is a Sports College. Since becoming a Sports College, the school has developed its sporting facilities, including:
Building a "5 a-side" football complex in partnership with playfootball.com
Building a Library and improving its ICT facilities
Renovating the sports blocks, changing facilities and sports halls.
Developing one of the best table tennis centres in the UK, used during the prelude to the London 2012 Olympic Games by various national teams, located at the top of the school grounds.
Developing a centre for "Kids with Wheels" to maintain sporting activity
