Kingsbury Technical School and Queen Eleanor's Grammar School for Girls merged in 1972 to form Queensbury Upper School, when Bedfordshire changed from a two-tier school system to a three-tier system. Queensbury was the second grant-maintained school. The school had been flagged for closure but the community, including the localMember of Parliament, David Madel, fought to keep it open and took advantage of the introduction of the grant-maintained system introduced in 1988. Grant-maintained schools were abolished in 1998, and Queensbury was converted to a foundation school. During its ten years as a grant-maintained school, it grew from having very low enrolment numbers to being heavily oversubscribed. The school was converted to an academy in September 2012, and was renamed Queensbury Academy.
School site
Because the school used to be two separate schools, the buildings are quite a distant apart and there is some duplication in rooms across the school. There are, for instance, two gyms, main halls and canteens. There are two entrances from different sides of the site, although the main entrance leading to reception in the Central building is on Langdale Road.
Until the completion of Central building, where there is one purpose built staff room, there were also two staff rooms – one per building. On Langdale Road, there is a staff entrance to East building, and a main entrance to Central building. Opposite Meadway there is an entrance to West building. 'Central' building was added in 1999. The buildings have been updated to include IT suites in all buildings and new signage. Further recent improvements include new windows, a cafeteria area, an environmental centre and a covered outside picnic area for students. The academy also has a fitness suite for students and staff to use.
House system
The school uses a vertical house system to encourage teamwork and competition within the school, with awards and points being given to houses for various events. Each tutor group is assigned to a house. The houses are based in the two main buildings with Ennis and Rowling in the 'East' and Hawking and Sugar in the 'West'. Until 2013, the houses were named : Mead, Canesworde, Langdale and Hilton, after the four roads that surround the school site. The houses compete against each other during an annual Sports Day and occasional afternoon events; these give "Q Points" depending on a house's finishing position which are used to give a film afternoon reward to the students. The ties, although the same design and basic colours have a stripe in a colour representing their house. Each house is named after an influential person and these are:
