St. Peters Commmunity school was founded by Fr Ted Rogers in 1963 in Mbare. He realised the importance of providing educational opportunities to thousands of disadvantaged young people who had no access to seconday education. At that time, secondary schools were absorbing only 12% of the top primary school leavers.

St Peters Community Secondary School enrolled 80 students for a two year course leading to the External Junior Certificate. It used the St. Peters Primary School classrooms after classes. Later, it moved to Old Morgan High School in Cranborne, but it had to move since it was located in a 'white only' area. The school then moved to Kambuzuma in 1966. At the time the enrolment of students was 200, but by 1970, the number rose to 785

In 1969, technical courses in building, carpentry, needlework and technical drawing were introduced. At that time the school was not government aided. In 1971. the government took over the property to create a government primary school. The St. Peters Community Secondary School(SPCSS) was then moved to Glen Norah on a former farm. In the mid 1960s local volunteers were joined by volunteers from the Jesuit Stonyhurst College in England, one of whom introduced technical courses which has persisted to the day in the technical school.

The high school grew to 1051 students and went up to Form Six. A board of governors led by Fr Athol Evans was set. It was the that the Community School was named St. Peter's Kubatana(SPK) to emphasise the its collaborative and cooperative nature of the school.

Fr Davis was appointed principal, and he introduced additional courses and more importantly - the Marimba making unit. In addition, he introduced the F2 school. In his time, old farm buildings were converted to become classrooms in order to accomodate more students.

During the violent war of liberation, St. Peters became a refuge to several mission schools that were closed due to the war. Those included Monte Cassino in Macheke, Kutama in Zvimba, St. Paul's Musami and a government school in Mutoko. At that time SPK accomodated about 5000 students.

After Independence, the Community and F2 schools were combined to form the present SPK High School. A management committee was set up, different Jesuits took over as directors until 1994 when they moved out. During that time a Board of Trustees ran the school, but in 2004 the Jesuits returned and Br Dominic Shonhiwa became director. Several Jesuits have been directors since.

Today SPK is a government aided school that operates two entities, a high school under the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and a vocational training centre under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development.