International Affiliate Schools

Brisbane Girls Grammar School has relationships and interchanges with seven overseas schools with the following intent:

• Provide students with opportunities to meet students from the countries of these schools.
• Develop further understanding of diverse cultures and ways of thinking.
• Encourage students to experience and use their target language in real life communication.

The Affiliate Schools we interact with are in England, France, Germany, China and Japan. The programme began officially in 1978 and has run continuously since that time.

Participating Schools

School: Mie High School
Location: Matsusaka City , Japan

Affiliation: Each year in Term 3 we host a small number of students from this school for a period of one month. Every second year, students from Brisbane Girls Grammar School visit our Japanese schools.

Profile: In 1989 we extended our ties with Japan to include Matsusaka Girls High School in the town of Matsusaka, an hour by train from Nagoya. This school is part of the Education Foundation owned and directed by Professor Umemura, a foundation that includes institutions from Kindergarten to University. Matsusaka Girls High also became co-educational in the 1990s and is now Mie High School.

School: Mie Junior High School
Location: Matsusaka City , Japan

Affiliation: Each year in Term 3 we host a small number of students from this school for a period of ten days.

Profile: The relationship with Mie Junior High School began in 2004 with a short visit in Term 3. Like Mie High School, this school is part of the Education Foundation owned and directed by Professor Umemura.

School: Seirikan High School
Location: Tsushima City near Nagoya, Japan

Affiliation: Brisbane Girls Grammar School receives both short term and long term visits from this school. In Term 3 two students are hosted at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. Each year one student from Seirinkan High School spends eleven months at Brisbane Girls Grammar School as an academic student. Students from our School are also offered the opportunity to visit Seirinkan High for either short or long term visits.

Profile: In 1978, a formal exchange agreement was reached with Hirayama Gakuen Tsushima Girls High School in Tsushima near Nagoya, Japan. Tsushima Girls High School is a privately owned school. In 1988 on the anniversary of ten years of exchanges, the owner Mr Tetsue Hirayama sent two Japanese gardeners to Brisbane Girls Grammar School to construct a Japanese garden as a gift to our school. This garden is between the Science building and the main Administration building of the School.

In the early 1990s, changing demographics in Japan lead Tsushima Girls High to become co-educational under the name Seirikan High School.

School: Shanghai No 3 Girls School
Location: Shanghai, China

Affiliation: Every second year in Term 3 we host a small number of students from this school for a period of one week. Students from Brisbane Girls Grammar school are in turn hosted during our September holiday period.

Profile: Shanghai No 3 Girls School is one of the few key schools in China, with substantial government support for its highly academic aims. It is also one of the few single sex schools in the country. Shanghai No 3 Girls School is in Shanghai and through our exchanges with this school students from both cultures are able to share further understanding about countries that play a large part in the economic and cultural histories of both countries. Visits between the two schools are short term only.

School: Maria-Wächtler Schule
Location: Essen, Germany

Affiliation: Each year in July and August we host a small number of students from this school and our students have been welcomed at Maria-Wächtler Schule since 1989.

Profile: Maria-Wächtler Schule was founded as a school for young women to provide them with educational opportunities in the late 19 th century. Although now a co-educational school it continues to share similar objectives and practices with Brisbane Girls Grammar School.

School: Lycée Saint Paul
Location: Angoulême, France

Affiliation: Visits betweenour Affiliate School in France and Brisbane Girls Grammar School are very popular. Lycée St Paul visits us in February of each year for two to three weeks.

Profile: Lycée Saint Paul is a private lay Catholic school that also shares high academic status. Lycée Saint Paul is in the town of Angoulême, southwest of Paris and it is a major historical centre as well as currently a significant economic centre of its area, Charente. Student visits between the two schools occur annually on a short term basis and have been ongoing since 1990.

School: The Cheltenham Ladies College
Location: Cheltenham, England
Website: http://www.cheltladiescollege.org/welcome/index.asp

Affiliation: The relationship with Cheltenham Ladies College in England goes back to the early history of Brisbane Girls Grammar School as one of our first Principals was Mary McKinley (1879-1881) who came from Cheltenham Ladies College.

Profile: Cheltenham is a prestigious girls school with a long history of educating young women. It is in the centre of an artistic and historical area of England.