Middle school covers a period of education that straddles primary education and secondary education, serving as a bridge between the two.

English Local Education Authorities introduced Middle Schools in the 1960s and 1970s. The notion of Middle Schools was mooted by the Plowden Report of 1967 which proposed a change to a three-tier model including First Schools for children aged between 5 and 8, Middle Schools for 8-12 year-olds, and then Upper or High Schools for 12-16 year-olds. Some authorities introduced Middle Schools for ideological reasons, in line with the report, while others did so for more pragmatic reasons relating to the raising of the age of end of compulsory school to 16. Different authorities introduced different age-range schools, although in the main, three models were used:

Around 2000 Middle Schools were in place in the early 1980s. However, that number began to fall in the later 1980s with the introduction of the National Curriculum. The new curriculum's splits in Key Stages at age 11 encouraged the majority of Local Education Authorities to return to a two-tier system of Primary and Secondary schools.