Timaru Girls' High School

Timaru Girls' High School is a secondary school in Timaru, New Zealand, founded in 1880. Timaru Girls' High provides education for girls aged between 13–18 years of age (class levels – years 9 to 13). It also has a boarding facility within the school grounds for pupils not living in Timaru itself and also caters for international students. The school motto is Scientia Potestas Est – Knowledge is Power. The school is a stone's throw away from the Catholic Roncalli College.

Timaru Girls' High School
Location
Cain Street, Timaru, New Zealand
Coordinates	44.4054°S 171.2445°E / -44.4054; 171.2445
Information
Type	State, Girls, Secondary (Year 9–15), with boarding facilities
Motto	Latin: Scientia Potestas Est "Knowledge is Power"
Established	1880
Ministry of Education Institution no.	361
Principal	Deb Hales
School roll	467[1] (July 2025)
Socio-economic decile	6N[2]
Website	timarugirls.school.nz

Enrolment

As of July 2025, Timaru Girls' High School has roll of 467 students, of which 64 (13.7%) identify as Māori.^[1]

As of 2025, the school has an Equity Index of 471,^[3] placing it amongst schools whose students have above average socioeconomic barriers to achievement (roughly equivalent to deciles 5 and 6 under the former socio-economic decile system).^[4]

Houses

The school has 4 colour houses named after New Zealand native flowers and each student is put into one of them to encourage team spirit.
The colours are:

• Yellow = Kowhai
• Blue = Konini
• Green = Ngaio
• Red = Rata

There are several House events per year, Swimming Sports, Athletics, Cross Country, Aitkens and Waters Cup Day and House Choirs

Notable alumnae

• Maria Fahey – cricketer
• Jo Goodhew – MP
• Elizabeth Gunn – paediatrician
• Jean Hay – early childhood educator
• Eva Hill – doctor

Controversy

In September 2011, a school girl wanted to support the country's Blue Friday, a nationwide campaign to raise awareness of prostate cancer. She was banned from supporting it because students were only allowed to support female causes, even though the girl's own grandfather had died from this cancer. This raised issues in the newspapers^[5]