Tauranga Girls' College replacing two school houses named after men

Year 12 students Mahnoor Qadri (left) and Annabel Robinson. Photo / George Novak

What's in a name?

A lot, for Tauranga Girls' College students.

Two houses with men's names - kept from the pre-1958 co-educational Tauranga College era - are being replaced.

The school is saying haere rā to physicist Lord Ernest Rutherford, and war hero Lord Bernard Freyberg and establishing three new houses named after women.

It is also retaining the two existing houses named after women - Batten and Mansfield - as a nod to the past.

The new houses will be announced at a special assembly with students and alumni on Thursday

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A school competition started this year offering a $500 prize seeking suggestions for new house names.

The names did not have to be people. Birds were suggested, as were parts of wharenui at marae.

Tauranga Girls' College entrance in 2017. Photo / File

Students and staff voted on the pitches and Year 12 students Mahnoor Qadri and Annabel Robinson's ideas to use inspirational New Zealand women came out on top.

Since then, they have been finalising which New Zealand women the new houses will honour, and inspirational traits and values of each.

"Even with our current houses, I didn't know too much about the people behind them until we starting researching," Mahnoor said

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"So with the new system, we can not only bring new women to the front but also teach people about them."

As well as setting up information boards for the assembly, with Annabel, Mahnoor has been drawing each woman to help students recognise their faces.

The students also sought advice and information from Tauranga iwi Ngāti Ranginui.

"It has been really cool to put in the research," Annabel said.

Two of the women chosen for the new houses were Māori because "with the old houses there was no representation".

Tauranga Girls' College principal Tara Kanji. Photo / File

"It has turned into quite the journey," principal Tara Kanji said.

"In a school that focuses on giving women an opportunity to be themselves and who they are in a world that we know is not particularly equitable when it comes to gender, it made sense to having houses for women."

At Thursday's assembly, the house cup will be presented, and the school community will be told the names of their new houses and the colours.

The event will also be streamed live on Facebook.

Tauranga Boys' College changed its house names in 2009, to replace two of those retained from Tauranga College.