From the Middle School

Welcome to our final week of Term 3. It has been such a journey and I am so proud of our girls and the tremendous support that the Middle School Leadership team has provided to them. A special thank you to our Middle School Administration team, Stephenie Sibug, Ruth Volonakis and Tennille Tysoe our Administration Co-ordinator, for their willingness to always being so supportive of all that is going on.

On Thursday this week our Compass groups had the opportunity to come together in Houses across Years 7 and 8 to enjoy a game of Scattergories. It is always such a pleasure to see the girls interact and have a fun time as Middle School sisters. I would also like to thank Ang-Ya Koo and Tully O’Regan, two of our Middle School Leaders (MSL), for putting together the beautiful Year 12 farewell video from the MSLs which acknowledged the importance of relationships between Middle School and the Senior School girls.

Congratulations to the Jacaranda Award Recipients for Term 3, your commitment to the College Values is well worth celebrating!

House	Year 7	Year 8
Bennett A	Kate Toomey	Charlotte Ford
Bennett B	Siena Parsons	Jaya Krishnadasan
Goodlet A	Elise Lin	Sienna Hui
Goodlet B	Caroline Wilson	Elizabeth Tang
Ingleholme A	Alia Curren	Tessa Newitt
Ingleholme B	Anais Vander	Grace Rew
Hammond A	Stella Boyle	Lauren Gibson
Hammond B	Anais McDonald	Sarah Boland
Lang A	Addison Seeto	Annabel Charnock
Lang B	Alice Mao	Lucy Jackson
Marden A	Daisy Stoodley-Williamson	Elizabeth Bull
Marden B	Zara Pattinson	Evila Zhou
Thomas A	Sophia Darbar	Jocelyn Teni
Thomas B	Cindy Xu	Chanette Hu
Wylie A	Ruby Scarf	Zoe Rose
Wylie B	Poppy Leys	Sabrina Cooke

 

It is my pleasure to acknowledge the winners of our Middle School MasterChef Challenge that was held over the last weeks. Congratulations to:

Sarah Usher – most thematic creation
Emily Abadee – most creative entry
Tully Black – best presentation
And a special shout-out to Isabella Attard for highest level of participation. 

Middle School Service Initiative Term 4: Focus on Hope

I am very excited to be working with the Middle School Service Committee and would like to congratulate these girls for their enthusiasm and initiative in working to bring together a very exciting opportunity for our girls next term. The focus is on reaching out to others and building hope.

Year 7: Layne Phillips, Jenny Xu, Angela Zhang, Addison Seeto

Year 8: Kathie Ong, Jocelyn Teni, Phoebe Paleologos, Emily Abadee.

Below is an introduction to what lies ahead:

“At the moment, life can be uneasy and difficult for many people in lockdown, especially for those in nursing homes and hospitals. This is why students from the Middle School want to share all of their love and support to members of the wider community, in a COVID-safe way!

 Students will be given choices in relation to committing to various projects such as: knitting small knee rugs for the elderly, creating joey pouches for WIRES, sewing tiny hearts for neonatal babies, sharing a video of a personal performance for entertainment, composing letters to brighten someone’s day… the list goes on.

We are going to begin each project remotely while we are working online. We aim to get girls to participate during Compass and designated assembly time with the new Compass Captains leading the activities.

 Even though we are planning so many activities online for the Pymble girls, we are looking forward to coming back to school so that we can take these activities a step forward. Who knows, we may even be able to visit or virtually visit, nursing homes and children’s hospitals (in a COVID-safe way) when we come back. The Community Service team can’t wait until that day comes!” – Addison Seeto (Year 7), Emily Abadee and Kathie Ong (Year 8)

I wanted to shout out to Ruhani Surana who performed at our Middle School Year 7 Got Talent last week. The fact that she composed the song herself parodying Guy Sebastian’s song Belong to suit our COVID-19 context was exceptional! We certainly do have talent in Year 7! Please find the link below to the lyrics:

Lyrics for song

Directions

 

This week Year 7 girls completed work on their Upstander Advertisement Campaign which is designed to contribute to the prevention of cyberbullying within our school community. To promote upstanding, as opposed to being a bystander, students worked in pairs or small groups and chose to create a poster, brochure or flyer using the Canva graphic design program. Prior to designing the posters, students watched introductory videos and discussed the impact of a specific case where upstander behaviour made a positive impact. Students then researched the importance of, and the reasons for, standing up for others.

Our Bystander Campaign – Arini, Siena, Emily and Amy

This week our Year 8 Directions classes continued their lessons with the focus on service to others or on gratitude. We encourage you to speak to your daughter about these lessons and encourage them to continue participating in them over the holiday break. Positivity postcards to neighbours, painted gratitude rocks or chalk messages on your footpaths are some of the feel-good projects your family might like to participate in.  

Next term, Year 8 Directions will focus on the ideas of character, resilience and awareness. We are also creating a series of practical lessons to support the girls as they transition to face-to-face learning. These lessons will focus on managing uncertainty, emotional regulation and support/help seeking strategies. We will end the year with a review of student goals as our Year 8 students begin their transition into the Upper School.  

 I wanted to highlight that owing to current NSW Health guidelines, we will not be able to proceed with the traditional Year 7 Christmas Service this year in Term 4, Week 6 on Tuesday 9 November. This is a much-loved event on our calendar annually where we host Year 7 parents in the Chapel with their daughters. We thank you for your understanding and have planned several alternative fun activities in Term 4 when the girls return to campus to make up for it.