From the Boarding School

From our Head of Boarding

We made it! It has been such a different term with much uncertainty. I am, however, filled with admiration for our Boarders who have made the most of our changed circumstances while ensuring they enjoyed their extra time at home. I am also proud of our Boarding staff members who have used the time to put in place initiatives and engage with professional learning while maintaining meaningful and regular contact with our offsite Boarders.

Our ‘Think Pink’ Trivia Night last Friday was a real highlight. It was wonderful to see our Boarding families enjoying the company of each other and I am very happy to report they all demonstrated excellent knowledge of our Boarding family. Clearly they are ‘Keeping Up With Our Boarders’!

Our new leaders

On Monday we were delighted to congratulate our new Boarding Prefects for the 2021/22 year.

Boarding Head Prefect	Philippa Austin
Boarding Deputy Head Prefect	Rylee McKinstry
Community Engagement Prefect	Eloise Wilson
House Liaison Prefect	Jordyn Seeto
Social Inclusion Prefect	Amanda Lwin
Sport and the Arts Prefect	Chloe Moore
Wellbeing Prefect	Chloe Hanlan

I know these girls already have some fantastic ideas for enhancing the Boarding experience and I look forward to working closely with them in the new term. And just to get you extra excited about what is to come, following is an insight into our Head and Deputy Head Boarders.

Philippa (Pip) Austin – Boarding Head Prefect

I am extremely privileged to be appointed Head Boarder from 2022 and represent our Boarding family alongside Rylee. Boarding has been such a monumental part of my life since I arrived from my hometown of Cowra in Year 7, and I am honoured to be named as a leader and have the opportunity to work with some of my closest friends to give back to the community that has given so much to me.

I have always idolised the Boarding Prefects and admired their ability to unite the Boarders. I hope I can achieve and uphold the same atmosphere whilst nurturing the younger girls through their unique experience. Our vision for the year ahead is to uphold the sense of spirit and promote Boarding so that more girls can have the same experience that I have had. Coming from a small country town, Boarding has provided me with opportunities that I could have only dreamt of, and I will forever be grateful to not only my parents for the sacrifice that they have made, but also to the staff and girls that have shaped my memorable experience here at the College.

Being a Boarder equips girls with resilience and independence and provides incomparable opportunities to develop lifelong friendships. I can only use my mum and her Boarding friends as an example – they remain unseparated to this day. Becoming a Boarder has been one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences of my life. I am extremely grateful and excited to venture into yet another successful year here at Pymble.

Rylee McKinstry – Boarding Deputy Head Prefect

I have been boarding at Pymble since Year 7 and live at Terrigal Beach on the Central Coast. I am so honoured and excited to represent our Boarding family alongside Pip and our Year 12 Boarding sisters.

Boarding has been an enriching and fulfilling experience, and I am so grateful to be fortunate enough to attend such an incredible school. Pymble Boarding has provided me with a supportive and structured environment which has been essential in allowing me to thrive and overcome the highs and lows of high school. My favourite memories have been the unlimited moments with the girls and staff who become your family as you go through this incredible journey together. I have made so many lifelong friends and learned so much from the diverse community surrounding me.

Boarding has been an integral part of my upbringing and has shaped such a significant part of who I am. I am so honoured to have been selected to represent my community and hope to ensure others feel the same way about their journey in Boarding.

During the next year, I hope Pip, the other Year 12 Prefects and I can enhance the Boarding experience through acting on the ideas and needs of all Boarders, and build on our reputation as a kind and positive community. I am so excited to work with such an amazing group of leaders and for what is to come over the next year.

We will miss you Miss Glover

Tuesday night was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the many gifts of the term in our End of Term Chapel Service. It was also our chance to bid farewell to our House Supervisor of Marden House, Miss Kathryn Glover.

Kathryn started at Pymble just under four years ago. Having spent almost her entire life either as a Boarder or working in Boarding, she quickly found her feet and put her own stamp on Marden House. Kathryn is organised, efficient and much loved by the parents and girls. As you can imagine it is incredibly difficult for parents to send their girls away to school and the trust and respect that the parents have for Kathryn speaks volumes. The girls also appreciated the sense of home that Kathryn built and enjoyed her daily whiteboard updates, fun House meetings and Boarding stories. And as a team we valued her great ideas, common sense and expertise in Boardingware!

As many of you will also know, Kathryn is passionate about music and while there wasn’t much success in getting the Boarders to sing their hymns in Latin, she was a great mentor to the girls who were learning instruments, encouraging them to practise and share their talents in Chapel. She also loved the opportunity to teach music and I know the Pymble Music Department appreciated having her in their team. With this in mind, the Australian Ballet School is the perfect fit for Kathryn and has the added bonus of moving her closer to family and friends. I thank Kathryn for her many contributions and send every good wish for her next adventure.

Farewell to our Year 12 Girls

On Wednesday we celebrated our Year 12 Boarders in an online event. While we couldn’t be together in person, it was a fabulous night in which the girls donned their formal wear and were ready to party. There were many highlights of the evening, not the least the beautiful video filled with good wishes from families and friends. We wish these special girls all the best as they prepare for their final examinations and look forward to supporting them when they return to Boarding next term.

I hope you enjoy reading the farewell speech from our 2020-2021 Boarding Head Prefect Ella Jones and Boarding Deputy Head Prefect Brin Kierath.

Well, where do we begin? We are going to miss this beautiful community and you beautiful people. Pymble Boarding has been a home for all of us and while this is definitely not the farewell any of us were expecting – let us not forget the amazing journey along the way.

I myself started here in 2016 and for the past six years I have made so many friendships and memories which I will have with me for the rest of my life. I remember how scared I was on the first day: not knowing anyone and leaving my family for the first time. But I soon realised how much fun Boarding can be, as it is in fact a sleepover every day. I want to give a massive thank you to everyone who has made this experience so memorable.

The Boarding family is one which everyone looks out for one another, like the time Connie lent Ella her hand warmers on a cold day, and how when an outfit is needed suddenly everyone’s clothes are up for grabs. I feel as if our year group’s main motto is ‘sharing is caring’; this is exemplified through the communal toothpaste. We want to thank everyone for caring.

We wanted to say a massive thank you to all the Boarding staff who have created a warm and welcoming environment for us to live! Thank you Mrs Burgess and Mrs White for your guidance and support throughout this past year, you have without a doubt helped every single one of us in some way or another. Thank you Sally for making everything behind the scenes happen for us Boarders and never saying no to any crazy ideas. To Anne, thank you for being your loving, quirky, hilarious self who brightened up Lang, I will miss sitting in the office and hearing all your crazy stories. And all the parents with us here tonight, thank you so much for giving us this amazing opportunity for which we are all so grateful.

To the Year 12 Boarders, we were so lucky to have a year group with all of you in it. We’re going to miss all the movie nights, the breakfasts in the kitchen which finished right on time at 8.20am, the evacuation drills in the middle of the night, where we would all huddle together along the Colonnade. It’s all these memories at this school which we will cherish for a lifetime, so we wanted to thank everyone for making Boarding a second home and all the Boarders who became an extended family!

We may be leaving each other and saying goodbye but we will always keep these special friendships which we have made. I am sure everyone will always just be a phone call away and I am so excited to see what life has in store for all of us. We love you all and will miss you dearly.

Goodbye Pymble Boarding and thank you for all the love, laughter and fun you have given us!

The Margaret Brooke ‘Brooksie’ Award

Congratulations to Skye Pockley, our ‘Brooksie’ recipient for Term 3. Skye has embraced every opportunity since joining us last year and consistently demonstrates the College Values. This term she has not let the tyranny of distance defy her, she has been the first to turn up to online House meetings and has contributed to our Boarding family in many ways. She is an outstanding member of the BRC and leads her peers online in a thoughtful and mature manner. Skye did a wonderful job representing the Boarders at the whole school Olympics Assembly and has been an active communicator in a variety of formats. Skye’s generosity of spirit and respectful determination shines through in all that she does. She is indeed a tenacious, courageous, compassionate and giving young woman.

View from my window

It is most fitting that our Year 12 Head Boarder, Ella Jones, signs off with the final ‘View From My Window’ for the term. Ella joined us in Year 7 from Hong Kong and has embraced every opportunity and given back to our Boarding family in so many ways.

Hi, I’m Ella and I am a Year 12 Boarder. For me, home is a long way away in Hong Kong. I absolutely love living there and find the busy city life ideal. It takes me about 14 hours to get from the Boarding house to my front door. This journey includes two car trips, a train, airport queues and a nine-and-a-half-hour flight. My family lives in Hong Kong because of work; there are four of us, my parents, my older brother, Hugo, and me. Together we do a lot of hiking, shopping, beach visits and love to try new restaurants. We live on the peak which is tucked up away from the city and in my opinion is where the view is the best. My favourite window in the apartment is the living room window. From here I can see the ocean stretching to the horizon, islands in the distance, mountains, other high rise buildings, cargo ships, reservoirs, the jungle and even the iconic Ocean Park. My favourite thing about Hong Kong is the busy lifestyle, there is always something new to try, somewhere new to go and new people from all over the world to meet.