Wellington East Girls' College

Wellington East Girls' College
185px Lumen accipe et imperti "Accept the Light (of knowledge) and pass it on"
Address
Austin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand
Coordinates
Information
Type	Single Sex Girls State Secondary (Year 9-13)
Established	1925
Ministry of Education Institution no.	274
Principal	Sally Haughton
School roll	1070 (March 2016)
Socio-economic decile	8P
Website	www.wegc.school.nz

Wellington East Girls' College is on the lower slopes of Mount Victoria. It was built on reserve land bordering Wellington College in 1925, to cope with the demand for female education in Wellington at the time. By the end of the First World War, there were over 800 pupils at Wellington Girls’ High School (now Wellington Girls' College) in Thorndon, so a new school was founded on the other side of the city.

The College primarily serves families of the eastern and southern suburbs and inner city Wellington. However, it also has students from all over Wellington, the Hutt Valley and Porirua City.

Ethnicities of Students are:

• European/Pakeha 57%
• Māori 9%
• Samoan 8%
• Indian 7%
• Chinese 5%
• African 3%
• Other Asian 3%
• Other European 3%
• Other Pacific Island 2%
• Other ethnic groups 3%

It shares with Wellington College the administration of the Gifford Observatory.

The architecture of the original building is interwar stripped classical. The grand main building has a Category I listing in the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Register. In 2011, earthquake strengthening work was begun on the building, but was halted when engineers found it to meet just 17% of the national building standard (the minimum for existing buildings is 34%). The building was empty until late 2014, when work was restarted with the aim of strengthening and redeveloping the building.

The school's longtime principal Janice Campbell began to retire at the end of Term 1 2007, and has been replaced by Sally Haughton at the beginning of Term 2.

Houses

There are four houses at Wellington East Girls' College:

• Onslow (Blue) Named after William Onslow, 4th Earl of Onslow, the 11th Governor of New Zealand.
• Jellicoe (Green) Named after John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, the 2nd Governor-General of New Zealand.
• Fergusson (Yellow) Named after Sir Charles Fergusson, 7th Baronet, the 3rd Governor-General of New Zealand.
• Bledisloe (Red) Named after Charles Bathurst, 1st Viscount Bledisloe, the fourth Governor-General of New Zealand.