On Monday, 14th May 1900, Gilles Street Public School opened to serve the local community in the south-east corner of Adelaide. It was named after Osmond Gilles, an early treasurer of the colony of South Australia. When the inspectors visited in July there were 588 students enrolled, this in a school designed for 500. Overcrowding continued to be a problem, so a new infant building was opened in 1919 followed by an extra primary school building in 1926. In 1918 the Glover Playground in the South Parklands was opened and was used by the school for ‘open air exercises’.

In the first 30 years, the top class contained girls and boys who, these days, would be secondary school students. There were also students for whom this would be their only school, as many students finished their education at the end of primary school.

From 1920 until 1961, there were two separate schools – the Gilles Street Practising School and the Gilles Street Infant Practising School. Both had an important role in teacher training as practising schools for student-teachers. This period also marked the start of other organisations using the buildings, such as the Correspondence School, Girls’ Special Classes, the Deaf Blind Unit, the Language Centre and the Curriculum Unit.

At the start of 1962, the two schools were amalgamated into the present day Gilles Street Primary School. Recent years have seen it change from being the local school to one that also caters for children whose parents come into the city for their daily employment. Following a review by the Government in 1994-5 and the closure of Sturt Street Primary School in 1996, the New Arrivals Program transferred to Gilles Street Primary School in 1997.

In 2004 Sturt Street re-opened as the Sturt Street Community School educating children from birth to 8 years of age.

Today Gilles Street Primary School has two components: the mainstream school and the New Arrivals Program, and is an international school community with students coming from over 40 different cultural groups.

 

http://www.gillesstps.sa.edu.au/02_AboutUs03_History.htm