For the first part of the 2025 sporting year, College Sport Wellington is catching up with some of the sports captains and sports prefects to help promote their school and highlight some teams and individuals to keep an eye out for this year.

In this profile we meet Amelie Deane and Ella Wellington, sports prefects at Wellington East Girls’ College.

Name of school: Wellington East Girls’ College

School’s sporting colours: Blue and Gold

Sports Prefects names: Amelie Deane and Ella Wellington

What does your role of sports prefect in 2025 entail; what is your job as sports

prefects in promoting your school’s sports?

As sports prefects it's our job to advertise upcoming sporting events and recognise sporting achievements across our school. One way we do this is by posting on the wegcsports Instagram and Facebook page. When an East sports team is competing in a final we try our hardest to promote the game and encourage as many students to come support as possible. 

What sports do you personally play for your school or compete in?

Ella Wellington: Rowing, Netball

Amelie Deane: Football, Futsal, Dragon Boating

Recapping 2024. What were a couple of highlights of your school’s sporting success last year?

2024 was a great year for sports at WEGC. We had multiple extraordinary teams make it into the finals. But two major highlights of 2024 that truly stand out have got to be the WEGC Football and Basketball teams winning their final with a huge home crowd behind them. Students showed up with homemade signs and banners they had spent the previous lunchtimes creating to show their support.

Looking forward to 2025, what are a couple of senior sports teams at WEGC to look out for this year?

Wellington East has got a promising sporting year ahead. Senior teams such as the Futsal, Basketball and Football teams are all looking to uphold their title as the regional champions. The Futsal team is looking to regain the national title to potentially win it for the third time.

Is there a team to watch in Junior Sport in 2025?

Our junior futsal team - last year they came 2nd in the national tournament and are definitely eager to take the title this year.

Do you have students competing in individual sports to a high level, perhaps one or two people we don’t know about or in a sport that receives less coverage than the main ones, or outside of school sport?

Scarlett Hardy is a year 13 student at Wellington East Girls’ College. Just last year she travelled to Peru to compete in the Junior worlds artistic swimming competition against current Olympians.

It is not just the active participants, but the volunteers and student officials that make a difference – is the case at your school?

Our school is so lucky to have so many student coaches and volunteers, one student in particular is Rebecca Wash who won the student coach of the year award in 2024. Rebecca coached both Netball and Futsal teams while also being the manager and coordinator of tennis at East. We are also so grateful to have Nathan Wallace as the WEGC head rowing coach. Nathan has dedicated thousands of hours coaching East athletes, seve days a week for 11 months a year since 2008! And of course, we have to give a big shoutout to our sports coordinators Pip and Anna, without them nothing would happen.

Tell us a bit about your school’s support on the sports field or court? Does this

support give your teams a lift in close or big games?

Representing the school is always an honour and we pride ourselves with embodying our mana, whether that is as a player or supporter. As a school we collectively come together to support and uplift our teams throughout the season, when a final comes around, we take this to another level, making signs, practicing chants, and preparing that blue and gold face paint. As someone who has played in multiple finals with this support it definitely takes it to another level and pushes you harder to win. 

Do you have a school sporting mascot, or a sports song to see and hear out there on the courts and fields?

Our school mascot is Tara the Taniwha which is believed to have been around for the last 15 years or so. We have many chants, our most iconic one I’d say is Domeili, “Domeli Domeli, Domeli East Side!”

Article courtesy of College Sport Media

Photos courtesy of Photo Wellington