The school was opened in 1980 by the Governor General, Sir David Beattie, with a roll of 199 students. The school is co-educational and was the first S80 or whānau house school built in New Zealand. It now has a roll of over 2500 students and the campus is situated on 13 hectares (32 acres) of land.
Each whānau house comprises a large building with a variety of teaching spaces and a commons area which acts as a social space. The whānau is an extended family of approximately 300 students which operates as a mini school within the larger school.
On arrival at Macleans College a student is placed in a form class. That form class is assigned to one of the whānau houses. The students remain in that form class and, therefore, in that house for the duration of their time at the college.
The school is named after the Maclean family who immigrated to New Zealand in 1850 and farmed the area on which the school is built.
The official emblem of the school, worn on the students' jerseys, incorporates as a centrepiece a castle from the Maclean family crest and is set against six waves. The waves symbolise the physical setting of the school. The emblem represents the Macleans' philosophy of basing school values on the best of the old and the new.
The mission of Macleans College is, within the resources available to us, to work with the local community to create a school where every student is educated to achieve his or her full potential as a whole person; to create opportunities, expand horizons, reward effort and encourage excellence in the efficient, disciplined, caring and supportive environment of the whānau house system; to foster equity, respect, self worth, interpersonal skills and a worthwhile value system, so enabling each student to make a lifelong positive contribution to society.