[1] Rainworth State School, which opened in July 1928, is located in the residential suburb of Bardon, approximately 4.2 km west of Brisbane's central business district.

Originally called Upper Paddington, Bardon was surveyed in 1862, sold as country lots in the same year, and became gentlemen's estates and farms.

The Department of Public Instruction purchased two adjacent, elevated, well-drained allotments, comprising seven acres and 33 perches (2.868ha), for a school site in December 1925, at a cost of £1008 17s 6d.

[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] The construction of substantial brick school buildings[33] in prosperous or growing suburban areas and regional centres during the 1930s provided tangible proof of the government's commitment to remedy the unemployment situation.

Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings.

The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor.

Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.

Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, these buildings could be built in stages, as available funding permitted and student numbers required; resulting in some complete designs never being realised.

[35][36][1] Despite their similarities, each Depression-era brick school building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features being utilised within the overall set.

These styles, which were derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts, typified by half-timbered gable-ends; Spanish Mission, with round-arched openings and decorative parapets; and Neo-classical, with pilasters, columns and large triangular pediments.

[38] The DPW architects involved in the design of Rainworth State School were Raymond Clare Nowland and Harold James Parr.

In March and April 1933, plans were drawn for two substantial brick buildings to replace Rainworth State School's existing timber ones.

The building was of fire-proof construction with external walls of facebrick and roughcast render, surmounted by a galvanised iron roof.

The opening of the Petrie Terrace Opportunity Class in 1933, and St Joseph's Primary School in Bardon in 1938, also affected enrolments.

Relief workers cleared and levelled the playing field and excavated the site for the grass tennis courts during the 1929-30 financial year.

[55][56][57][58][1] The commencement of the Pacific theatre of World War II (WWII) in December 1941, with its threat of invasion of Australia, resulted in the Queensland Government closing all coastal state schools in January 1942.

[62] At Rainworth State School in 1942, girls in Grade 5 organised a benefit concert and raised £1 for the Smokes for Soldiers' Appeal.

In 1958, the Parents and Citizens Association (P&C), arranged for the Post Master General's Office (PMG) to use its bulldozers and graders, to widen and lengthen the school oval, fill-in a creek, put in a supporting/retaining wall, do groundwork for a basketball area and built an access road from the school to the playing field.

In 1981, an Arbor Day celebration resulted in 500 trees being planted in the school grounds but many did not survive; while a Brisbane City Council grant funded a major upgrade of the tennis courts, which were sealed, extended by 2.4m, re-fenced and their drainage improved.

To accommodate a school library on the ground floor, a suspended ceiling was inserted and partitions were added in the east classroom to form a workroom and store.

On the first floor, the two classrooms were converted into a double teaching area by making a large opening in the partition and introducing an accordion door.

[1] Rainworth State School occupies a 2.868ha site in Bardon, a suburb approximately 4.2 km west of the Brisbane CBD.

The school fronts Boundary Road to the north and is bounded on its other sides by Main Avenue (south) and residential properties (east and west).

Surrounded by other nearby teaching buildings, its long sides face north (front) and south with a north-facing verandahs (now enclosed to form corridors).

Entrances with porticos, are on the building's north and south sides at the west end and provide access into a stair hall.

The wall is approximately 100m in length, beginning at the edge of the school driveway to the west and returning along the north east corner of the site.

[1] The Depression-era brick school building, retaining wall with stairs, and the levelling of parts of the school grounds for a playing field (1929–30) and tennis courts (1929–30) are the result of the Queensland Government's building and relief work programmes during the 1930s that stimulated the economy and provided work for men unemployed as a result of the Great Depression.

These include: a government-designed Depression-era brick school building with two-storey form, high-quality design with ornamental features, and facebrick exterior, set within a 1930s landscaped site with a retaining wall and stairs, play areas, and sporting facilities.

Rainworth State School has a strong and ongoing association with past and present pupils, parents, staff members, and the surrounding community through sustained use since its establishment in a rapidly developing residential area in 1928.

The place is important for its contribution to the educational development of Rainworth and its surrounding suburbs within Queensland's capital as they evolved over more than 90 years, with generations of children taught at the school.