Carlton Gardens Primary School

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Carlton Gardens Primary School (number 2605) is a historic state school in inner Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is located at 215 Rathdowne Street, Carlton, Victoria, between Grattan and Pelham streets, overlooking the Carlton Gardens. (Google map reference). It is the closest school to Melbourne's CBD, and is also near the Melbourne Museum, RMIT and the University of Melbourne, with which the school has historic links.

Built contemporaneously with the nearby Royal Exhibition Building and opened in 1884, the school has operated continuously since that time, though it was briefly used as a hospital during the 1919 flu epidemic. During its history the school has been alternatively known as Rathdowne Street Primary School and Carlton Primary School. It was built in one of the first subdivisions of land outside central Melbourne. The grounds were bought by the Education Department from landowner Thomas O'Grady in 1869 and described at the time as "one of the best, if not the best in Carlton".

The school is relatively small by modern standards, housing 160 students in one large building within a single campus. However at various times it has housed up to 1000 students.