Christchurch Girls' High School

Christchurch Girls' High School
File:Chch Girls High 009.JPG Christchurch Girls' High School Sapientia et Veritas "Wisdom and Truth"
Address
10 Matai Street, Riccarton, Christchurch 8011, New Zealand
Coordinates
Information
Type	State Single Sex Girls' Secondary (Year 9–13) with boarding facilities.
Established	1877
Ministry of Education Institution no.	328
Principal	Pauline Duthie (from 2014)
School roll	1110 (March 2016)
Socio-economic decile	9Q
Website	www.cghs.school.nz

Christchurch Girls' High School in Christchurch, New Zealand, was established in 1877 and is the second oldest girls' secondary school in the country (Otago Girls' High School is older). Christchurch Girls' High School was established before Christchurch Boys' High School (1881). The first headmistress was Mrs. Georgiana Ingle, but the second principal Helen Connon (later Helen Macmillan Brown) is better known as she was the first woman in any British university to gain an Honours degree. Christchurch Girls' High School has continued this long tradition of leading girls' education and empowering young women.

Christchurch Girls' High School is known to many as Girls' High or CGHS and provides boarding facilities for 95 students from years 9 to 13 at Acland House, located 20–30 minutes walk away from school.

The school stands by the Avon River, on a site it has occupied since 1986. Previously, the area was occupied by a mill that was first built in 1861 by William Derisley Wood, which became known as the Riccarton Mill.

The school's old location, which was renamed to Cranmer Centre, features prominently in the 1994 film Heavenly Creatures based on the 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case involving two students.

The school featured in national and international news in 1972 when two students led a 'walkout' from school assembly to protest the inclusion of religion in school morning assemblies . NZ schools then were supposed to be secular but this was largely ignored and students were usually told to bring a note from their parents if they wanted to opt out of the religious component of school assemblies.

The February 2011 Christchurch earthquake had a large impact on the school: it caused extensive damage to the current site; the old Cranmer Centre site was damaged so badly that it was later demolished - and the school's principal at the time, Prue Taylor, lost her husband Brian in the CTV Building collapse.

Pauline Duthie, the current principal of the school, was appointed in 2014.

Christchurch Girls' High School consistently rates as one of the New Zealands top academic performers in the state NCEA examinations.

Notable alumnae

• Leila Adu, singer
• Alice Candy (1888–1977), academic
• Eileen Fairbairn (1893-1981), teacher and geographer
• Helen Gibson (1868-1938), founder of Rangi Ruru Girls' School
• Mary Gibson (1864-1929), Principal of CGHS for thirty years
• Pauline Parker (born 1938), convicted murderer
• Anne Perry (born 1938 as Juliet Hulme), English author and convicted murderer
• Gwen Somerset (1894-1988), adult educator and writer

External links

• School website
• Education Review Office (ERO) reports
• Heavenly Creatures Website at Geocities.com