The Primary School was opened by the Algarve Regional Director of Education, António Francisco Ventura Pina, on 18th June 2000. It opened to the public in the former primary school of Santa Justa, with the exhibition The Primary School.

The former primary schools are more than just buildings; they are institutions that through time and owing to the depopulation of the municipality have been closing their doors and falling into oblivion. Alcoutim Municipality decided to restore and adapt some of these buildings and create a municipal museum network, but in order to preserve the function of the building, it decided to include a museum relating to the history of the primary school in this network. This is how the Primary School came into being.

Through the creation of this museum, the aim is to make a memorial to what would have been the childhood of many of the older members of the population of the municipality of Alcoutim, so that this might be a place that, apart from recreating a primary school from a bygone era, would also act as a school to keep alive the collective memory of a population, and provide information about what were once the primary schools.

This museum recreates a primary school from the late 1950s and early 1960s, and it pays tribute to all the teachers who taught and still teach in the municipality, because it is they who teach the lessons to the people of Alcoutim that they need in order to participate as citizens in the development of their region.