Kia ora parents, caregivers and whānau

Here we are, in the second week of school, after a very busy orientation and course confirmation week. On Tuesday we held our start of year pōwhiri to welcome all new students, whānau and staff to our school. This was also a chance to officially welcome Ms Maria Lemalie as an Assistant Principal at CGHS. She was accompanied by whānau, Shirley Boys’ High School staff and students, Ministry of Education senior staff, and representatives of the Pasifika community in Christchurch. It was a beautiful hand over, with a wonderful haka and singing by the Shirley Boys’ contingent. I would like to extend a big thank you to our whānau, Mr Darren Beattie (kaikōrero), Ms Adrienne Huia (Kaiārahi Māori and kaikaranga) and Mrs Laura-Jean Peawini (Assistant Principal), for the organisation of this significant event in our calendar. Congratulations too to our kapa haka who performed and sang brilliantly.

Today we held our first assembly for the year. Here at CGHS we proudly inherit history and tradition from a long way back, but it is also nice to begin new traditions. So, for this assembly, we invited our prefect parents to attend and place the leadership badges on their daughters as a sign of support and aroha. Rangatiratanga (leadership) is one of our four new school values. At Christchurch Girls’ High School / Te Kura o Hine Waiora, we want students and staff to stand tall and proud, to have the courage and strength of character to do what is right, to face challenges and change with confidence. Mana should be demonstrated in all our relationships, both between and within our staff and students. All students can show leadership, particularly in treating others with care (aroha) and respect (manaakitanga), and stepping up when they see or hear poor treatment of others.

Our tradition is embedded in the actions of the strong women who founded and established our school in 1877, well before women even received the vote in New Zealand. Female leadership and the growing of wāhine toa has been a key cornerstone of the long history of this school. Early staff and graduates were suffragettes and led in education, politics, journalism, science, social reform and mountaineering to name a few areas of influence. In the Performing Arts Centre foyer you can view our historic rolls of honour of school duxes, head girls, and graduates who served in WWI and WWII. These women did not necessarily set out to become trailblazers, but valued education, followed their convictions, took opportunities as they came and had the courage to challenge the status quo. They were forerunners of the feminist movements of the later 20th Century, which further transformed rights for women in social, political and economic arenas.

On February 26, we will celebrate International Women’s Day. While we celebrate the progress of women globally, the World Economic Forum estimates it will be 257 years before women achieve global gender pay parity. In addition to this, even in many of the world’s leading economies women still struggle to comprise more than 20-30 percent of positions in parliament, corporations and boardrooms, with even lower proportions at the senior levels of leadership. Despite these concerning statistics there is growing confidence that societal changes are steering us towards a more female-friendly world where consumer and technology trends will be redefined around a new set of priorities based on gender, career and family.

Congratulations to our school prefects who received badges today and to their parents. I wish Amiria Tikao (Head Girl) and her team the best in their leadership this year and with the changes they want to introduce. Again, I remind all our students that they are all leaders. We do not need a badge to lead, and can lead in many ways, small and big, each and every day. Our students just need to have the courage, the belief in themselves and the desire to serve and help others to begin this pathway.

At this school we belong to a long line of feminist tradition. This is our place to stand proud, to belong, to draw strength from, and to take with us through life. I encourage our students to think about the women who have gone before them at this school and about what their own contribution will be to the story of women in Aotearoa.

Ngā mihi nui

Christine O’Neill