The Kenmore State School was a one teacher school until 1958.
In 1900 a Provisional School was started in the Orange Lodge Hall which was across the road from the current site. Then two acres of land was purchased for £60 and the school built in 1905.
It was a one room building with a verandah. The school room was 27 ft x 18 ft (8.2m x 5.5m) and the verandah 27 ft x 7 ft (8.2 m x 2.1m) (lets say for the interview 8 x 5m and 8 x 2m.)
The teacher from 1905 for the next 17 years was Bessie Palmer. She lived at Chelmer and used to walk to school each day…. over Indooroopilly Bridge and down the dusty Moggill Rd. According to school records , if she did not turn up for any reason the children just played in the creek all day.
Children often could not attend school if they were needed on the farm. Attendance numbers fluctuated…often boosted by children of men working on the water pipeline.
In early 1950s numbers were down to 12 students there was talk of closing the school.
Then with the residential boom the numbers started to rise and in 1958 a second classroom was added under the school. Ten years later there were 847 students at the rapidly expanding Kenmore State School.
The school survived, and it has thrived ever since.
