At inception, the college opened with 116 Form One and 45 Lower Six students with a teaching staff of 20. The Form One students were made up of 64 boys and 52 girls, while the Lower Six students consisted of 24 boys and 21 girls. Both the students and staff were distributed into four houses namely: Eagle, Elephant, Peacock and Tiger. 

The period between 1975 and 1980 was marked with growing pains ranging from lack of a permanent facility and other infrastructural issues. Initially, classes were held at the defunct Government Trade Center, Yaba while the students lived in rented private houses in Igbobi, Lagos (near the Igbobi College campus).

At the beginning of the 1976-77 academic session, classes were held inside temporary classroom buildings built on the premises of the Lagos State Government College, Ojo[now the site of the Lagos State University (LASU)]. During this period, the girls lived within the same compound in Ojo; the boys remained in the Igbobi dormitory facility while traveling by a school bus to Ojo. Between January and March 1977, heavy traffic along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway as a result of the World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ‘77), an international trade show hosted by Nigeria, interrupted this arrangement. Consequently, the school and girl’s dormitory were moved back to the Yaba Trade Center. 

As part of an interim arrangement for the college, Science Practicals (Laboratory) were conducted for the Lower Six and Upper Six Students at the National Technical Teachers’ College, Lagos between October 1975 and April 1977. Beginning in April 1977, the boys were relocated to new buildings at Satellite Town, the residential complex built and used during the prior FESTAC ’77 event.  The girls were moved back to the Lagos State facility in Ojo. The boys were transported daily by bus between  Satellite Town and Ojo. This situation continued until late in September 1980 when the school moved to its permanent and present site at Ijanikin. 

The school commenced the 1980-81 academic session in Ijanikin with a transformation in the school administration and the boarding house system. First, the post of the Vice Principal was broken into two functional roles, namely the Vice Principal of Administration and the Vice Principal of Academics. Second, the school boarding house names were changed from animal names to names of prominent historical figures in Nigeria. The initial four boarding house system was later expanded to a six boarding house system.