She may claim to have been “an average student” in her day, and from the wrong side of the railway line, but former Southland Girls High School principal Yvonne Browning has certainly helped produce some internationally acclaimed academic achievers – something she’s passionate about.

Yvonne spent 22 years as principal of Southland Girls’ High School, ensuring that girls achieved qualifications that ensured they had choices in life – a better job, a trade or a university education.

“I’ve got my mother to thank for that. It was a big thing for her – her goal was to send us to Southland Girls where she herself started, aged 10, in the third form,” Yvonne says.

Principal Yvonne Browning, before her resignation from Southland Girls High School in 2025. Photo: Supplied

“She was really bright – the dux of her primary school two years running."

“She was my major influence and always insisted we obtained maximum qualifications and kept our own bank account to always be independent in life."

"Women didn’t traditionally have a bank account in her day.”

Southland Girls was a highly esteemed school with only a few girls accepted from South Invercargill, when Yvonne entered her third form year.

“The only reason I got in was because Mum was an Old Girl.”

Hers was a happy childhood, the daughter of well-known Invercargill picture framer Victor Middlemiss, also a highly respected potter who exhibited nationally.

Yvonne was a sporty kid right from Newfield Primary days – a keen netballer and tennis player, dab hand at four square and even beat the boys at marbles.

Her parents saved for her piano lessons, Yvonne in deep trouble after wagging piano to play netball.

After three attempts to get into Teacher’s College, starting in the sixth form, Yvonne was finally accepted – ‘always persist and don’t give up’ being her motto.

“I was Miss Middlemiss then and I remember the next-door teacher bringing a little boy with a lisp in to see me and asking him, ‘Who’s this?’

He said, ‘Miss Piddlepiss’ in all seriousness which was pretty funny.”

However, after three years and the lack of intellectual stimulation teaching in a primary school Yvonne headed off on a two-year OE to London and Europe, returning to teach PE at Cargill High, where her sister taught.

After three years teaching PE she took her sister’s advice and studied economics extramurally, eventually becoming an economics teacher, and later head of accounting and economics at Verdon College.

An ambitious young woman intent on climbing the career ladder, Yvonne had struggled with male chauvinism in primary school leadership.

“My hardest battle was against male dominance,” she says, totally deterred by one male deputy principal when she told him she was interested in leadership.

“’Why would you want a leadership role when you’ll only get married and have babies?’

Or the principal who, when we got a new photocopier and the female staff weren’t allowed to use it, said we had to ask the men to do the photocopying for us.”

However, Yvonne enjoyed one of her principal role models while at Verdon College. Brother Arnold (Turner) was far more inclusive of women.

“He was amazing and taught me the importance of community inside and outside of school."

"He was full of care and concern, knew everybody’s birthdays.”

Yvonne says former Girls High principal Linda Braun was also a strong influence.

“She taught me a lot about leadership."

"She was aspirational for girls and future focused, forward thinking and very smart."

"That resonated with me.”

Yvonne wasn’t always on the right side of the principal’s door, recalling “those steely blue eyes” of long-time principal Elizabeth Clarkson when their whole fourth form class was lined up outside Mrs Clarkson’s office by the maths teacher for misbehaving.

“We all had to go in,” she recalls.

Mrs Clarkson was also ahead of the times and said she didn’t expect us to work in a shop or be a secretary,” Yvonne says.

“I was still nervous of her when she came into my office in 2004 when we were organising the school’s 125th anniversary,” she grins.

She is proud of how SGHS created a new Form 7 – 13 girls’ school after The Network Review saw the closure of next-door Tweedsmuir Intermediate, along with others, after 18 months of persistence to bring about that change.

“If you’re thrown a negative then you turn it into a positive so in September 2004 we started."

"We had three months to turn two sites into a new single sex school.”

That involved a lot of research and meshing ideas from the likes of Melbourne schools, but it added another 500 students to the roll.

“We changed up our curriculum to the 21st Century more tailored to the interests, needs and abilities of girls now and focused more on pastoral care, a more holistic approach.”

Year level coordinators replaced deans in a move away from the old discipline focus to more of a nurturing social, emotional, physical and academic wellbeing approach encompassing the whole student.

“I find learning the pastoral way is the best."

"If students have problems learning, it’s either too difficult or they’re bored."

"It’s just a manifestation of their frustration."

"It worked amazingly well revealing why they were misbehaving.”

Yvonne joined Southland Girls in 1995, working her way up from senior dean and deputy assistant principal to assistance principal, then deputy principal and finally principal in 2003.

She says her greatest achievement as principal at Southland Girls has been better gearing learning towards girls.

The results show – some Year 9’s already doing Year 11 level studies as they’re so bright.

“Learning for girls has nothing to do with age, but needs and abilities,” she says.

“Ability grouping and multi-level learning is something very unique to Southland Girls, something we started in 2005,” she says.

The more challenging Cambridge University exams were also introduced back in 2006 to extend the more intellectual girls who needed that – a move another local high school only introduced last year, she says.

Like a proud mum Yvonne, rattles off the countless high achievers, many of them now internationally successful, both academically and in sport, who’ve graced the prestigious prizegiving ceremonies on the Southland Girls’ stage.

“We’ve had a girl attend Harvard and one at Brown University, seven or eight on sports scholarships to American universities and recently Year 12 student Sophie Ineson won the Prime Minister’s Space and Technology Award – the only one in NZ, which is worth $50,000."

"We’ve had a national rugby title in 2016, top four in NZ netball and our Femme Choir among the top 20 in NZ for the last eight years,” she says.

There’s been an assistant to former Prime Minister Helen Clark, a Polish ambassador, Rhodes scholar, an NZ Black Fern, Black Stick and Olympic silver medal rower, all of whom she’s immensely proud.

Yvonne Browning was presented her Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) - for services to education and youth - by the Governor-General, Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Cindy Kiro, in September 2023. Photo: Supplied

Yvonne was honoured and surprised to be awarded an Order of Merit – MNZM for her work in education and youth, but her “biggest achievement”, she believes, was the establishment of the Tiwai Aluminum Smelter – Southland Girls High partnership to encourage more girls into engineering, something dear to her heart.

“A group of girls goes to Tiwai every year to focus on applying chemistry and physics learning to engineering.”

The programme has won a Deloitte’s Award.

But most importantly, since it was established in 2008, there have been 63 Southland Girls’ graduates study engineering at Canterbury University.

“That’s the thing that stands out for me.”

Yvonne’s late husband Neville, who worked at the Smelter and passed away in 2022, was a key reason she’d succeeded so highly in her career, she says.

“He was a very supportive husband."

"If it hadn’t been for him so willing to step in at home I couldn’t have done what I did.”

Of course, there’s one more thing about Girls High that stands out – those ‘jolly red’ regulation shoes as well-known 1970s deputy principal Dorothy Grantham used to call them.

They’ve been a distinguishable part of the school’s uniform since early principal Muriel May deemed the “dull” black ones rather boring back in 1952.

“We’re the third oldest girls’ school in NZ and the only one in the Southern Hemisphere, and probably the world, that has red shoes,” Yvonne says, proudly.

“The girls love them, especially this generation. They’re a unique point of difference, part of the sisterhood bond.”

Yvonne and daughter Annalise enjoying special time together in Melbourne. Photo: Supplied

As for Yvonne, she may have resigned from her role last month (December) to move to Melbourne closer to her daughter and grandchildren, but she’s quick to point out that’s “resigned, not retired”.

“I’d like to find work here. I’ve got my feelers out,” she says.

“The more active your brain is the longer you live.”

Not time to stop learning yet, Yvonne.

Sue Fea is a senior journalist with more than 40-years experience covering police, social and general news in the southern regions.