From the Principal
Thank you for the joy in Term 3
In years to come, when we look back at our term-and-a-half spent in lockdown, my hope is you will feel an enormous sense of pride in what we have achieved as a Pymble family.
We’ve cared for each other from afar while staying focused on ensuring our girls receive the very best holistic educational experience we can possibly deliver and remain connected with their teachers, friends, classmates and House groups.
We’ve ‘had a go’ at doing the things we know and love (and explored new local ‘adventures’, too) in reimagined and COVID-safe ways, and we have overcome the many challenges of having to stay away from the people and places we most want to be with. We have intentionally sought and created many moments of joy as a community to lift our spirits through this unusual and sometimes unsettling time.
Week 10 has been particularly joy-filled, with many special events to mark the end of term and share important College announcements.
Pymble’s Greatest Picnic on Monday was an opportunity for all staff and students across the College to take time out from class to connect with their friends and families over a bite to eat outdoors – with the Pymble playlist on in the background via Spotify, of course! It was lovely to see all the House-themed set ups and challenges that staff and students completed and shared on our picnic padlet. If you need a smile today, please take a moment to scroll through some of the delightful posts via this link.
Announcing our Pymlympic champions
This week we also wrapped up our Pymlympic Games with an Official Closing Ceremony to celebrate some of the many ways our community participated, and to announce the winning House and students voted Most Valuable Players (MVP). A huge thank you to all who took part in the activities to support their House or team.
Please click on the image below to visit our Pymlympics website and watch the uplifting Closing Ceremony video created by our Captain of Student Communications, Rachel Kang, as well as the video announcing all our fabulous winners.
Introducing our new student leaders
While we wished with all our hearts that we could have had our annual Student Leaders Announcement assembly in the gym – complete with cheers and thunderous drumrolls from the girls – it was such a pleasure to reveal our incoming Prefects for 2021/2022 in an online assembly this week.
The exciting thing about this Prefect team is that the positions, structure and selection process have all been revised and refined, following feedback from girls in Years 9 to 12 and a deciding vote by Years 11 and 12 earlier in the year.
In a nutshell, the new student leadership model has a smaller number of Prefects but a more opportunities for students in Years 7 to 12 to work with student leaders in a range of committees to enhance the life of the College and the experiences of all our girls.
Click here to view the complete list of all our office bearers for the next 12 months, including our co-Head Prefects, Isabel Dean and Chloe Hoang. It was wonderful to see the huge student vote that led to these girls being selected for these positions and I look forward to working with Isabel, Chloe and the entire Prefect team in the months ahead.
Finally, a heartfelt thank you from Wayside Chapel
When we began our Community Project, ‘Love Over Hate’, at the end of Term 2, we had no idea how important our actions would be. An extended lockdown was far from our minds when we began our collection of toiletries, clothing and other items to donate to Wayside Chapel and the people they support.
As it turned out, we managed to fill BOXES and BOXES and BOXES with all the items Wayside needs to help their homeless clients enjoy the simple, humanising luxury of a shower, clean clothing and underwear. We arranged to have the boxes delivered earlier this term and received this grateful note from Laura Henry, the Wayside Marketing Manager who has visited Pymble previously to speak to the girls about respecting and caring for every member of society.
“On behalf of Wayside Chapel, I wanted to share my deepest and widest thanks to you and the entire school for the incredible haul of donations we received. The stocks were getting incredibly low and with around 100 people coming to Wayside every day for support, we needed the donation more than ever! Please pass on our thanks to all of your students.
I’ve also attached a photo I took of our staff receiving some of the donations.”
Signing off for the last time this term, with gratitude in my heart for the kind, caring souls in our community and sending big virtual hugs to you all.
