Newington’s Co-Education Transition Off to a Strong Start

Nine months into one of the most significant changes in its 160-year history, Newington College’s transition to co-education is proving a positive experience for students, families and staff.

In January, 52 girls commenced Kindergarten and Year 5 across Newington’s Wyvern House and Lindfield preparatory campuses, beginning a staged transition that will see girls join the senior campus in Years 7 and 11 from 2028. The College is expected to become fully co-educational by 2033.

For a school that has educated boys for generations, the arrival of its first girls was a significant moment. Nine months on, however, the change is becoming part of everyday school life.

Newington’s Prep Co-education Coordinator, Meg Edwards, describes the experience as “organic”.

“It’s the perfect word to describe what it feels like to have girls in our classrooms and playgrounds today, and how the process has evolved.”

She says the transition has been “seamless and felt so natural”, with visitors frequently commenting that it feels as though the girls have always been part of the College.

That sense of normality is perhaps one of the strongest signs that the transition is working.

For Deputy, Preparatory Schools and ELC Benjamin Barrington-Higgs, the change has brought something else: energy.

“Great change brings great energy, and when you spend time walking around our Preps, going in and out of the classrooms as I do, you clearly see that’s exactly what’s happened with co-ed; it’s brought a new energy.”

He says the change has also encouraged the College to reflect on its approach to education.

“Change also brings renewal and dynamism, and co-ed has really made us look at, and think about, the way we educate young people and what we can do even better.”

For Director of Co-education Rebecca Panagopoulos, the significance of the first day was deeply personal.

Walking towards Wyvern House in January, she saw a Newington family arriving with both a boy and a girl in uniform.

“I actually felt quite emotional,” she recalls. “I think because in that instance it hit me, and I thought to myself… ‘we’ve arrived, we have now come full circle, and here they are’.”

Yet, she says, there was also something strikingly ordinary about the scene.

“In many ways that scene was also ‘the most normal looking thing’.”

The welcome from the Newington community reinforced that sense.

“For our community to welcome and embrace our pioneer girls as it did on those two days in January was truly heartwarming.”

For Panagopoulos, the transition reflects something deeper about the College itself.

“As a school we have always been changing, adapting and improving in line with our community’s needs.”

She describes it as “a very exciting time for the College and our community”.

The early experience suggests that the change has not diminished the College’s identity. Instead, it has created an opportunity to consider how its traditions and values can be carried into a new chapter.

That is particularly significant for a school shaped by its Christian and Wesleyan heritage.

The Christian understanding of community is not one of sameness. The Apostle Paul’s image of the body of Christ reminds us that a community is made up of different people, with different gifts and different contributions. Its strength comes not from everyone being the same, but from recognising the value of each person.

The girls who arrived this year are not simply being added to an existing community. They are already influencing it through bringing new perspectives, relationships and experiences.

The next stages of the journey will take place when girls join the senior campus in 2028.