When Sue Hart walked into Canberra Girls Grammar School for her first day, somebody asked her "what does your father do? What level is he?"
The year was 1971 and her family had just arrived from Melbourne so her father could take up a job at a wood products factory in Hume.
"In those days, the town was public servants or defence, and so he was in private enterprise, and they were considered sort of quaint," she said.
"In the day, there were... girls at school, who, depending on the level that your father was, and it was invariably your father, not your mother, determined whether they could be your friends.
"Fortunately, that no longer exists. It was really weird."
Mrs Hart completed years 11 and 12 at Canberra Girls Grammar School, but her connection to the school has deepened over the years, including serving on the school board.
Three generations of her family have attended the Canberra Girls Grammar School. They have spanned the era of chalk on chalkboards through to smartboards and now artificial intelligence (AI).
This year, Canberra Girls Grammar School is marking 100 years since it opened the first small campus in Reid.
Canberra only had a population of about 5000 when the Sisters of the Church opened a school in Glebe House, the old rectory of St John's Anglican Church, on June 10, 1926.
The school was known as St Gabriel's and among its first 10 students were the daughters and young sons of local farmers, returned soldier settlers, federal public servants, Anglican clergy and an orphan.
By the end of the year enrolments had grown to 22 students and the school was looking for a new permanent home.
In September 1927 a new school building was opened on Melbourne Avenue, Deakin, complete with classrooms, dining hall and dormitories to host up to 400 pupils and 150 boarders.
The Elizabethan-style building was surrounded by paddocks and was one of the few landmarks in Canberra at the time. The school was praised in the media as one of the first private enterprises of its size in the capital besides a few shops.
By 1933, the Sisters of the Church were facing the prospect of closing the school over financial pressures, but a group of parents rallied to save the school and it was renamed Canberra Church of England Girls Grammar School.
The school population boomed with the postwar population. It added the junior school campus on Grey Street in 1972.
Today the school continues to operate over the two campuses, from the early learning centre to year 12. It enrols boys up to the end of year 3 and then specialises in girls education.
With current enrolments at 1373 students, Mrs Hart said the school was unapologetically a mid-sized offering.
"We're very firmly a mid-sized school, so we won't grow to the 2000, 2500 that other schools do," she said.
"We know that at that size, we can deliver pastoral care. We can know all the students."
Despite the rocky start, Mrs Hart soon made firm friends who have stayed in touch for life.
She said it was "an absolute no-brainer" to send her own daughters, Madeleine Harley and Stephanie Foulkes, to Canberra Girls Grammar School after a period living in England.
"I got cancer in 2000 when Mad was in year 12, and I knew that every day a teacher on both campuses would find the girls and check in on them, and it was every day for that year," she said.
"It was just sensational, and they had a really good education here and a really good time here. Which is why I then went onto the various committees and wound up as the chair of the board."
Mrs Harley, who is now head of the English department, said she has a special connection with her students.
"As a teacher, it's really special because I've got those shared experiences with girls here. I joke with some of them when they get to the end of Year 12 and say, 'I'll see you at the reunions'."
While Madeleine forged a career in education, Mrs Foulkes joined Defence after school. She and her husband are both in the Navy and decided to base the family in Canberra to provide stability.
It was an easy decision for the sisters to enrol their children at their former school.
"The values of the school are built into them before they even really know it, and so they are welcoming," Mrs Foulkes said.
The students have been immersed in the history of their school during its centenary year.
The school's archivist has pulled together displays of artifacts for all to see, including a line-up of mannequins wearing school uniforms from over the years.
Mrs Harley led an initiative called back in time for school - inspired by the television show Back in Time for Dinner - where students got a taste of what school was like in the past.
The students were using ink pens and writing dictations in English. They were creating a wartime budget using imperial currency in maths. They watched the moon landing on a projector and used science textbooks from the 1940s in science.
"We found a story in our school magazine from a student in 1935 imagining what Girls Grammar would have been like in the future," Mrs Harley said.
"We used that with the girls and then got them to write what they thought it would be like [in the future], and we'll ... put those in the next time capsule for 50 years' time."
The girls thought they would not be sitting at desks in classrooms and would be using new technologies. But they all thought the school would still be thriving in 50 years' time.
From the intense rivalries between different houses to the commitment to giving back to the community through fundraising and volunteering, Mrs Harley said the Canberra Girls Grammar School experience was enduring through the decades.
"You've got that thing that ties you together. It doesn't matter whether you were here in 1972, in 2000, or the girls that are walking out at the end of 2026, we have these experiences and these aspects of our school that connect us all, and I think that's really really special."
