Wesley Girls' High School

t an efficient school head in the person of Mrs. Elizabeth Waldron took over the running of the school. She administered the school for 43 good year and laid a solid foundation for what was to become the Wesleyan Girls’ School and Training Home. Values such as fortitude, integrity and truthfulness soon become the hallmarks of the products of the school. Their high academic ability encouraged the Methodist church to agree to the provision of higher education for girls. Consequently, in 1884, Rev. Cannell who was then the Headmaster of Mfantsipim School stared the Secondary section with 20 girls. The two levels; primary and secondary continued by fits and starts and were sometimes closed down due to acute shortage of funding. It even suffered a temporary loss of identity when it had to team up with Mfantsipim as a co-educational Secondary School under a new name, the Collegiate School. By 1900, the school was on its own again with Mrs. H.J. Ellis as the Headmistress. The School in the early 20th century was dominated by the able leadership and constructive work of Sister Evelyn Bellamy, a deaconess who headed the school from 1914 to 1943. it was during her time, precisely on 8th June 1925 that Dr. Kwegyri Aggrey visited the school ‘to educate a boy is to an individual but to educate a girl is to a educate a family’. In 1951, the Secondary School section was separated definitely from the primary when Miss Olive Compton moved the Secondary division of the school to its present site at Kakumdo. The firm establishment of the High School is attributed to Miss Compton who conceptualize the school as H.M.S Excellence and had the school designed architecturally as such. With time the glamour of the high school eclipsed the primary section which has still not regained its former glory till today. Subsequently Headmistresses; Miss Clarice Garnett the last of the missionaries saw to the establishment of the sixth form for science (the art has already been established by Miss Compton). Miss Clarice Garnett handed over to the first African headmistress of the school, Mrs. Rosina Acheampong, in 1981. Mrs. Rosina Acheampong had to work hard to prove to the whole world that the black woman was also capable pf running the school of excellence. This she did beyond imagination. Despite the challenges that 1987 Education Reform posed with the resultant structural change that made the secondary course 3 years instead of the 7 years. Rosina Acheampong was able to maintain discipline and such high academic standards that the school became the most desired by girls I the country. She was succeeded in 1997 by Mrs. Nancy Thompson another old girl of the school. She increased the intake from 800 to about 1200 and expanded the infrastructure whist maintaining the high academic standards. In 2003, she retired and Mrs. Betty Djokoto, another old girl of the 1975 year group, who had been Assistant Headmistress for 7years in the school, became the Headmistress. During her time, admission to the school is through the Computerized Selection for schools and placement system (CSSPS). The implications of this new system of admissions for the school coupled with current low moral of teachers are challenges she must work hard to overcome if standards are to be maintained. However, with the current successes that the school has chalked up by producing the Best General Art Student, in the 2005 Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSECE) 2006, it is obvious that she is determined to continue the tradition of excellence for which the school has been known for decades.