A new Girls’ High School

Press, 6 August 1983, Page 16

A new Girls’ High School

The debate about the fate of Four Avenues School should not detract from the good news. A decade after the site was chosen, tenders are about to be called for a new Christchurch Girls’ High School in Deans Avenue. Christchurch Boys’ High School moved from cramped quarters, in what is now the Arts Centre, to a spacious home in Riccarton in 1926. For decades, its sister school has had to devise makeshift arrangements to expand teaching space and to find room for sports. If all goes well, a new and attractive school for 800 girls should be ready for the 1986 school year, 109 years after the school opened in Christchurch. The school’s special place in Christchurch needs to be acknowledged by critics who might claim that, when rolls at some secondary schools are falling, new school buildings costing millions of dollars are unnecessary. The

rebuilding of Girls’ High School after so long can hardly been said to have received priority over pressing needs at other schools. The new school will probably be the best equipped State school in Christchurch. As such, it need not remain an elite institution. As rolls decline, many other schools should be able to use the example of Girls’ High School to seek improved facilities.

Single sex schools have their opponents. Many Christchurch parents are not among them and Girls’ High School continues to draw more applicants than it can accommodate. Like Four Avenues, but in a very different manner, Girls’ High School also offers an alternative kind of education. Its reputation rests on the quality of its products. In new and more adequate surroundings, this reputation should be enhanced in the school’s second century.