Government's model and practising schools in city set the standards for South Australian teachers in early 1870s

Grote Street model school (at left) with the teachers' training school in Adelaide in about 1880.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

Before education become compulsory in 1875 for those aged seven to 13, the South Australian government moved towards model schools in Grote Street (1874),  Flinders Street, originally called East Adelaide (1878), Sturt Street (1883) and Currie Street (1893).

In the early 1870s, the South Australian government introduced legislation that would ensure children in the colony could get a consistent standard of public primary education.T he model schools were to set education standards for teachers across South Australia. 

The South Australian government started building more primary schools after compulsory elementary education was introduced in 1875. North Adelaide’s Tynte Street (1876) was classed at the first suburban model school.

Children had to attend public schools 35 days a quarter until they passed a Grade 4 examination. These schools had means-tested fees. Free public education started in 1892.

A teachers' training school was built in 1876 next to the Grote Street model school and then, when it moved from Franklin Street, Adelaide, in 1892, the Advanced School for Girls. In 1908, the Grote Street model school merged with the Training School for Teachers as the Continuation School for Boys – the first public secondary school for boys.

Later that year, the Advanced School for Girls – the first secondary school for girls opened in 1879 – was joined with the Continuation School for Boys to form the Adelaide High School. (This school moved in 1951 to its present site on West Terrace.)

Secondary classes within primary schools also started at this time. But for 40 years, until the 1950s, there were only four government high schools in the greater metropolitan Adelaide.