New Zealand - Dunedin - Otago Girls' High School - Form 5D - 1978 Do you have more information about the school or the people in this photo? Please use the comment section below to share. To search for other photos from this school, please type the schools name in to our search engine. Otago Girls' High School - It was opened 6 February 1871, after a long campaign by Learmonth Whyte Dalrymple. It is reputedly the oldest girls state-run secondary school in the Southern Hemisphere and the sixth oldest of its type in the world. - At its foundation the school occupied a neo-classical building on its present site which it shared with Otago Boys' High School. A new building on another site was built for the boys which they marched away to occupy in 1885 - In 1910 the present main block was opened, designed by Edmund Anscombe (1874–1948) and the old building on Tennyson Street was demolished - In the 1980s the main block was scheduled for demolition. After protest it was restored and extended by a sympathetic addition designed by Ted McCoy, and in 1987 was listed as a Category I Historic Place