From the Principal
“Nobody but me is going to change my story!”
– lyrics from the song Naughty in Matilda the Musical
What joy to sit back and watch our Year 6 students shine on stage in their performances of Matilda the Musical this week. For so many of our girls, the book, movie and musical are much-loved childhood favourites with a perfectly inspiring message: young girls have a powerful voice when it comes to their own education and standing up for themselves. Congratulations, Year 6, on a fabulous display of talent, timing and teamwork!
Huge congratulations also to our igsa Festival of Speech participants and volunteers, for not only placing fifth overall in the competition last weekend but successfully hosting hundreds of students, teachers, coaches and parents from other schools and selling their entire stock of badges created by our Upper School girls to help support Ukraine. Certainly, it made me feel Pymble Proud to hear how much our visitors appreciated our warm and friendly hospitality on our beautiful campus after two years of attending the festival online. A huge thank you to Bronwyn Hubbard, who was responsible for overseeing the festival this year – great job, Bronwyn!
We hear you
Feedback is something we value enormously at Pymble so it was interesting to come across a relatively new study that reveals people sometimes avoid giving feedback due to feelings of awkwardness, worry about the consequences of saying how they feel, or possibly underestimating the receiver’s desire for feedback. Please be assured our College approach to feedback – positive or constructive – stems from a genuine desire to ensure all voices in our community are heard, valued and part of conversations about our future. We continue to explore different ways to hear, share and respond to the voices of our students, staff and families.
To illustrate the range of outcomes stemming from feedback intentionally sought, we can look to our Secondary School timetable. We are committed to creating exceptional conditions for our teaching staff and students. After a comprehensive analysis of day and time structures in Secondary Schools around the world, and focus groups with Pymble students and staff, we have developed a new timetable for 2023 with five 60-minute academic lessons per day and short passing periods between lessons to allow for travel time. We will be continuing with our 45-minute Mind Body Spirit belt across the week, however, given the high rate of student and staff satisfaction with this daily session.
In Term 3, our Community Engagement team held a series of focus groups to provide an insight into our community’s needs around communication channels, parent engagement and events.
Based on this feedback, our IT team has made a series of improvements to MyPymble, starting in Term 4, to enhance the user experience. Further enhancements are planned for 2023 following termly focus groups with parents and carers to establish priorities.
Please click here to download the MyPymble app if you haven’t already done so.
The focus groups also led to further conversations with parents in the Junior School about the best ways to encourage a broad range of carers to get involved with volunteering through the Junior School Parent Support Group. Our current JSPG leaders have recently provided suggestions for a revised structure which will enable a greater variety of positions to better involve more families. Watch this space!
When it comes to new learning initiatives, such as our Year 9 Residential Program, feedback from all involved is critical in shaping the future experience for students – including our second Year 9 cohort who are currently having a fabulous time at the Valley in the first week of their four-week program. Parents of our Year 9 Pioneers have supported our research by sharing their perspectives of the program and its impact. This is in addition to the Pioneers themselves participating in pre- and post-program surveys and focus groups. Early findings of how the program encourages students to be courageous learners were presented by our Head of Campus – Vision Valley, Stuart Clark, and our Head of Outdoor Education, Nick Wilkesmann, at the recent National Outdoor Education Conference, and are a credit to all who were involved in the creation of our pilot program.
Among the many comments documented in surveys of our Pioneers were these gems:
“Although a little apprehensive at first about what the program would entail, deciding to give it a go was one of the best decisions I have made.”
“Personally, as a member of Gen Z, I find myself using my phone barely at all now!”
“The hiking is SO MUCH FUN and the food is amazing – they even have green tea in the kitchen!”
“It is a great experience for those wanting to challenge themselves, as well as those who might already have knowledge about outdoor expeditions, such as the girls that do Cadets.”
We have also responded to questions raised by Junior School and Middle School parents about their daughters’ upcoming Year 9 Residential Programs by holding information evenings with Q&A sessions.
Thank you for taking the time to tell us what matters to you, what you love, and what could be ‘even better if…’. We keep learning and growing from your feedback, and we will continue to facilitate opportunities to have constructive conversations about all aspects of the College as an invaluable component in delivering a world-class education for your daughters, today, tomorrow and in the future.
Dr Kate Hadwen