From the Principal
Our Boarders hold a very special place in our hearts. As anyone who has been to Boarding School knows, it takes an enormous amount of courage and resilience to live away from your family, with staff and other students as your carers and constant companions for the majority of each school year. The bond our Boarders share as a result is as precious as it is sustaining. Certainly, some of my closest friends remain my Boarding ‘sisters’ who I lived with all those years ago.
Happy Boarders’ Week!
This week was Boarders’ Week and it was wonderful to celebrate our ‘pink Pymble ladies’ with a program of events ranging from day girl versus Boarder relays, basketball and AFL matches, to tours of the Boarding Houses for our Preppies and a bush band concert tomorrow at lunchtime. As our Boarding Prefects Brin and Elle said in Wednesday’s Combined Assembly, Boarders’ Week is also a chance to acknowledge all the staff, day girls, mums, dads and others who generously support our Boarders with transport to sport on weekends, sleepovers, invitations to dinner and lunch and “helping us with anything and everything.” From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to our Pymble family for all you do to create a true home away from home for our girls.
On that note, Matt and I, along with some of our staff and our Chair of College Council, James Hunter, had the pleasure of visiting Dubbo last weekend to spend time with our current Boarding families from that region. We also caught up with several of our ex-students and families who are thinking about sending their daughters to Pymble in the future. Given how challenging times have been in country Australia, and despite the current mouse plague, it was great to feel the sense of optimism from our regional community.
Sharing stories with Grandparents
This week we had the great pleasure of welcoming Preparatory and Junior School grandparents to share a lunchtime with their granddaughters and their friends. There was a lot of love in the air as storybooks were read, memories of bygone childhoods were told and our girls proudly shared their learning with their loved ones. We are, of course, thinking of all those with family overseas who are not able to travel at the moment. To that extent, it was wonderful to see grandparents overseas Facetime or Skype their granddaughters, parents filling in for their absent parents and other grandparents metaphorically adopting other girls without family present so they too could connect with an older generation at this heart-warming event. Walking around, meeting family members and listening to their pure joy at being on campus again reminded me of how grateful we are that we can bring our community together in these ways.
Listening to our inner voices
Regular readers of The College Compass will be aware that I like to take the opportunity of our Combined Assembly for Years 7 to 12 to convey a timely message to the girls. At this week’s assembly, the message was about listening to your inner voice and training it to become your personal coach – one who will travel with you throughout life and guide you towards being your best self.
After acknowledging that we all have chinks in our armour, or weak spots, that sometimes tempt us into behaving in ways we are not proud of, I reminded the girls that our inner voice always speaks the truth. For instance, if you know you haven’t really given your best effort at something and someone tells you how impressed they are, the compliment rings hollow as you know deep down you could have done better. If you engage in negative or disrespectful chatter about someone else, no matter how justified, your inner voice knows the best version of you would ‘Go direct, with respect’ to the person to resolve the issue.
The opinion of your inner voice – especially when it says, “I’m proud of you” – is the one we should be listening to and heeding.
The girls were asked to take 30 seconds to identify six qualities they would like to be known for at school; ones that make their inner voice say, “I’m proud of you”.
You could hear a pin drop – which is incredibly rare in our vibrant assemblies – until the silence was broken by girls sharing their answers. Kindness, Loyalty, Bravery, Compassion and Optimism were a few of the responses. Interestingly, not one girl answered in relation to being a winner, getting an A in a test or making a Firsts team. When it all boils down to it, our values and character traits create the legacy we want to leave behind. The girls were challenged to think about how they would like to be remembered when they left Pymble and the important first steps they might take to ensure this is the reality for them.
We will continue to remind our girls that our ‘hidden scorecard’ in character is a combination of our actions every day – when things are going well and also during times of pressure, stress or discomfort. Listening to and growing their inner voices will help them to build the moral and ethical character which will enable them to have a truly successful life.
As you read this, you might like to reflect on the six words that come to mind when you are truly at your best. Try writing them down, discussing them with your children and making them visual – perhaps on the kitchen fridge or somewhere where you can reference them when decisions are being made.
One of my favourite reads at the moment is the sequel to Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life, called Beyond Order. One of Jordan’s latest ‘rules’ gives us strong guidance around our ‘hidden scorecard’ and encouragement to continue working on developing our best self.
“Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that.”
Finally, the Secondary pastoral team, along with our Deputy Principals and Chaplains, wanted to end the assembly with a message about the temptation of getting involved in negative ‘banter’ and how simply ‘calming down’ is, at times, the most effective strategy to ensure the chink in your armour is not exposed. We created this fun clip to reinforce this message to our girls. Enjoy!
