Source: Radio New Zealand
Southland Girls’ High School Google Maps/Screenshot
For more than a century, the top leadership at an Invercargill school was dominated by women.
The streak has now ended with Southland Girls’ High School getting their first ever male principal.
John Grogan, who has spent eight years as the school’s deputy, is making history at the school by taking up a permanent role as principal.
John Grogan. Southland Girls’ High School
He told Checkpoint he was certainly feeling some pressure but was ready to take on the challenge.
“It’s a big job and I have a lot to do and it’s a wonderful place to do it in.”
His first order of business was to sit down and talk with both staff and students.
Even though he’s familiar with most at the school, his goal was to start with a fresh pair of eyes.
“I want to hear from them afresh and find out what they’re thinking, where they think the school should go… We want to grow a school for the 21st century.”
It was Grogan’s predecessor and mentor Yvonne Browning, a recipient of the Member of New Zealand Order of Merit, that encouraged him to take the job.
While he was the first male in the job, he said his appointment had not provoked too many conversations at the school because he was well-known.
“We’re good with it, we’re moving forward.”
“The board did a really good review about what they wanted and where they wanted to go and that was in alignment with what I want to do and how I operate.”
When it came to whether single sex schools should continue into the future, Grogan stood by one of the school’s mottos.
“We say there is no best school but there is a best school for your child.”
He said they have seen girls at their school thrive and wanted parents to have the choice of an all-girls school.
“They know their children best, they know where they’ll thrive and we would really want parents to know that they can choose the best school for their child.”
Grogan said he had seen differences between the way girls and boys learn especially in the middle teenage years.
“Girls intellectually are slightly ahead of boys in the mid-teens and boys catch up, by the end of the school they’re all the same.’
He said girls tend to be more social, collaborative and can show more concern for one another.
“They need to have a confident environment where they can really relate well to each other and be who they want to be.”
“Boys like risk, girls want certainty, they want to know where they’re going, they want to understand the why, they want to understand what they’re going to learn and where it’s going to take them”
In many ways the school encouraged the idea of standing out and one of the ways was through its “sisterhood of the red shoes”.
The red shoes were an iconic part of the uniform at the high school that motivated the girls to “stand out and stand up”.
“So, wherever they go, people know who they are,” Grogan said.
“And so what I say to the girls is you all have red shoes, but you wear them your own unique way and you have your own path that you’re going to follow, but together you’ll succeed. “
Grogan wasn’t sure if he was going to get his own pair of red shoes but said he had them in his heart.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
