History of Grahamvale Primary School, Number 3696

In the early days of the twentieth century, the introduction of the Irrigation to the Shepparton district led to the acquisition of land to be divided for closer settlement. Settlers quickly took up this land, including land on 'The Shepparton Estate' to the north east of Shepparton. The majority of these settlers had families, some quite large families, so the need for a local school was quite obvious. A two acre section of land was selected, and was soon extended to four acres.

The original school comprised of one classroom which was moved to the site ready for the opening of the "Shepparton Estate School" on 1st May, 1911. In those times, the school's classes extended to grade eight and many students completed their education at the end of grade eight after obtaining their Merit Certificate. Unfortunately, overcrowding became a problem from the start. The teacher had 54 students in her care in her single classroom. A smaller, second room was brought to the site in 1912 while a residence was also built in that year. In September, 1911, a competition was held to choose a suitable name for the school. "Grahamvale School" was chosen. The name honoured the local member of Parliament and Minister for Agriculture, Mr George Graham.

In The following years, the school became surrounded by orchards. While a great number of settlers relocated from other parts of Victoria, many of the orchardists were migrants from various parts of Europe so Grahamvale School became a very multicultural school. New waves of migrants arrived just prior to and following World War 2. British, Greek, Macedonian and Albanian were not the only nationalities represented but they certainly were in the majority of migrants' families attending the school.