In June 1913 it was decided that Kogarah would be a suitable site for a new high school. On 31 October 1914, the land occupied by the cottage ‘Harrow Villa’ was purchased from its owner. This cottage with portable buildings added became the temporary St George Girls High School. St George Girls High School officially opened in February 1916 with 143 students and nine teachers.[4]
Annual events
Important annual events on the St George calendar include:
Swimming and Athletics Carnivals
The Walkathon
SRC Week
Drama Night, showcasing the talents of Drama students
Senior Drama Night, showcasing talents of Year 12 Drama
'Inspired' Night, a textiles and design fashion parade
The Summer Music Festival in conjunction with the Multicultural Food Festival
The "Listen" concerts, which include the Stage Band, Orchestra and Concert Band
The "Sing" concerts, which comprise the Vocal Ensemble and the Singing Tutorial girls
Organisations
The School has four school organisations which provide support to the school:
P & C Association – St George Girls High School Parents & Citizen' Association takes an active interest in the welfare and education of students. When possible, they have a guest speaker.
St Georgians – The St Georgians is the association for ex-students of the school to meet regularly.
Prefects – At St George Girls High School, there are 15 School Prefects, of them are two Vice Captains and one School Captain. These students are nominated and voted by their fellow Year 12 peers and lead in the planning events for their cohort and the wider school community.
Student Representative Council (SRC) – St George Girls High School has an active Student Representative Council (SRC). Students from each year elect representatives from their class to represent them at SRC meetings. The SRC consists of four Year 11 students selected by the students of the school. In the past, the SRC has participated in charities such as Daffodil Day, Jeans for Genes day and Pink Ribbon day as well as fundraising activities such as the Walkathon, Gelato Days and Mufti Days. Money raised from school fundraising activities is used for improvements within the school. Recent SRC projects include planting of trees for shade, purchasing teaching resources in the school and providing additional seating arrangements around the school quadrangles.
Associated schools
Although St George Girls High School is an all-girls school, Sydney Technical High School is often referred to as their male counterpart. Being the 'Brother School' of St George Girls High School, Sydney Technical High School often engages in joint SRC fundraising activities. Examples of these include SRC school dances, the St George vs. Sydney Tech netball game during SRC week, as well as P&C meetings. Each schools' ISCF Group (called Lighthouse from St George and SALT from Sydney Tech) regularly join to become Lightly Salted.[5]
Elsie Bramell – anthropologist and early advocate for preservation of Indigenous artefacts; school captain in 1927; first person with a university degree and the first woman to be employed by the Australian Museum in its Anthropology Department.[10]
Patricia BrennanAM – was a medical missionary, wife and mother, television broadcaster, forensic physician, haematology registrar at Prince of Wales Hospital, physician and surgeon at the Sudan Interior Mission Hospital in Jos, Nigeria, and Galmi surgical and obstetric hospital in Niger.[11]
Julie Campbell – a cell biologist and is recognised as a world leader in the field of smooth muscle biology.[12]
Lady Rita Cornforth – a chemist and the wife of Nobel Prize recipient Sir John Warcup Cornforth. They collaborated on a total of 41 papers that focused on enzyme stereochemistry.[13]
Mary Gwenyth (Gwen) Fleming – one of the first women Doctors to pass through the University of Sydney, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1939. Fleming was the first female Major in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps and her specialty was thoracic medicine. In 1945 Gwen was one of the first women admitted as a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and in 1973, she was made a Fellow.[14]
Jean Sinclair (Clair) IsbisterOBE – a pioneer in the development of hospital and outpatient services for mothers and babies, particularly in the area of childbirth practices and post-natal care. Her epidemiological studies at the Royal North Shore Hospital and Tresillian led to the establishment of numerous programs for mothers, babies and the care of children.[15]
Sports
Michelle Ford – Olympic gold medallist (freestyle swimming) in the Moscow 1980 games[6]
^"St George Girls High School". School Locator. NSW Public Schools. Retrieved 21 February 2008.
^P&C Association – Parent & Community Groups
^"St George Girls High School 2015 Annual Report" (PDF). 2015.
^"Our Archives". St George Girls High School.
^"Lightly Salted ISCF". Facebook.
^ a b c d e"Captain Address – St George Girls' High School". www.sgghs.com.au. 2007. Retrieved 18 October 2009.
^"All Bases Covered". smh.com.au. 7 September 2007. Retrieved 28 October 2007.
^"Good Nights". www.abc.net.au. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
^Franzen, Jonathan (3 June 2010). "Rereading 'The Man Who Loved Children'". The New York Times.
^Myatt, Sue. "Elsie Bramell: A pioneer in museum anthropology and Australian archaeology". Untold Stories. Retrieved 1 November 2023. Northern Territory University later merged into what is now Charles Darwin University
^Lindsay, Elaine (8 April 2011). "Faithful doctor fought for women". The Sydney Morning Herald.
^"Professor Julie Campbell". Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
^"Cornforth, Rita (1915–2012)". Trove.
^Fleming, Justin. "A trailblazer for female physicians". The Sydney Morning Herald.
^"Isbister, Jean Sinclair". The University of Sydney Medical School.
External links
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