From the Middle School
A very warm welcome to our new and continuing Middle School families for 2024. It was so lovely to meet many of you at the Year 7 Welcome Chapel Service on Monday. We are also delighted that 11 new families have joined our Year 8 cohort. I look forward to getting to know you and your daughters across the year.
This week’s two-day Year 7 Transition Program focused on building connections and assisting the girls to feel more familiar within their new environment. I am happy to report that they are settling in well and embracing the opportunities and challenges of stepping up to high school. A reminder that on Friday all of Year 7 will be sharing a barbecue lunch, followed by house games and a fun swimming session in our Aquatic Centre. There will be no academic classes that afternoon. Please ensure the girls have their kit with them. This will be an opportunity to celebrate together the end of a big and successful week.
Congratulations to Jingyuan Liu, Athena Wu and Selina Jiang of Year 7 who recently competed in the Asian Junior Championships Winter Debates. 193 students from China, South Korea, India, Singapore and Australia, attended this event. Jing was awarded best speaker for Australia and Oceania, Athena was awarded second best speaker and Selina was awarded third best speaker. We are so proud of the girls!
Congratulations also to Chloé Shires of Year 7 who over the break won the Year 6 Poetry Category in the 2023 Pens Against Poverty Competition.
A group of talented Year 8 students competed at the Worldwide Speed Cubers Competition held at Knox Grammar, late last year. It was the first team from Pymble to compete and they are to be congratulated on their skill and initiative. Bella Legge-Hughes (Year 8) has shared her reflection:
During the holidays a group of us (Cabrini Lee, Bella Legge-Hughes, Katy Jung, Nicole Fan) competed in a Worldwide Speed Cubers Competition at Knox Grammar. Following is a photo of us getting ready for the first rounds.
We all had a great day, and everyone was excited to smash their previous world rankings.
We all competed in the 3×3, 2×2, One Handed 3×3 and Pyraminx.
Our results were really good – we now collectively have an average world ranking of approximately 110,000 out of 220,000 Speed Cubers worldwide. The rankings are literally milliseconds apart, so we are super happy with our results.
We are all keen to get faster next year with more algorithms to learn.
I’m hoping to grow the team with the next competition coming up in May which will be 3×3, one-handed 3×3 and Skewb.
Last year I started the Pymble Rubik’s Cube Club. I wanted to find other people who were interested in cubing and other puzzles. It has grown into a really fun place to come together, solve puzzles and make new friends. A group of us decided to form a Pymble team to compete in upcoming competitions. There are several competitions during the year that we can join. If any students in Year 7 or 8 are interested they are most welcome to come to Rubik’s Cube Club which will be held every Monday during lunch in C08. We will supply 3×3 cubes. Come along and learn how to solve the 3×3 Rubik’s cube, make new friends and have loads of fun.
Written by Bella Legge-Hughes
From the Middle School Parent Group
Year 7
To stay up to date with all things Year 7, please click here to join the Year 7 WhatsApp parent group, and click here to join the Year 7 Facebook parent group.
Year 8
Welcome back to all families! We hope that you all had a wonderful and restful holiday break. Also, a huge welcome to the new Year 8 families! We hope your daughters have had a wonderful start at Pymble!
Cindy Tian and I are the Year 8 representatives for the Senior School Parent Group (SSPG) which is a subgroup of the Pymble Parents Association (PPA). The main objective of the parent group is to support the various activities within the school and to organise events with the aim to bring the parent community together.
There are several events coming up in Term 1. We strongly encourage as many parents to attend these events as possible. The first event to ‘kick off’ the year is the PPA Icebreaker which will be held on Friday 1st March. This is a fabulous evening with drinks and nibbles served out on the Gloucester Lawn. Later in the term, we will organise a Year 8 coffee morning at a local cafe.
Social Media for Year 8 Parents
We run several parent chat groups for the Year 8 group. These chat groups are independent of the school and are restricted access groups. Being a member of these groups provides opportunities to ask questions and to connect with other parents. Please note that joining these groups is entirely optional.
WhatsApp is primarily used by our year group. It is a community WhatsApp group containing two private groups.
- PLC Year 8 Announcements and Important Messages – This group is only used communicate important messages, announcements and reminders. Only the administrators can post messages in this group.
- Yr 8 Parents Class of 2028. This general chat used by parents to ask questions.
Please join these groups by clicking here or please ask Cindy or I to add you to the group;
There is also a Year 8 WeChat group and the name of this group is PLC Year 8 2024. Please join this group by contacting Cindy and she will add you to this group.
- PymbleLC Parents Class of 2028 is the FB group for our year. Selected messages from WhatsApp will be posted here.
- PymbleLC MSPG 2024. Messages about various activities will be posted here.
- Parents are also encouraged to join PymbleLC PPA and PymbleLC SSPG Facebook groups.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with either Cindy or myself if you have any questions or need help with anything.
Ms Cindy Tian 0400 980 181 and cindy.tian@gmail.com
Ms Kai Jones 0431 725 948 and kai_look@yahoo.com
Jenny O’Donnell
Head of Middle School