From the Acting Principal

There are so many highlights of Week 5 to celebrate, including the incredible bodies of work on display at the HSC Visual Arts Exhibition which officially opens tonight, but today this column is dedicated to all the dads, father figures, grandfathers, uncles, and significant male role models and carers in our girls’ lives. This includes our male Board members, academic staff, coaches, and professional services staff, who all influence the development of our students, sometimes directly and at other times behind the scenes, thanks to their unwavering care, dedication to their work, and belief in the power of a Pymble education for girls.

You’ve heard us say many times before that Pymble is firmly committed to single sex education, along with boundless opportunities to learn with and from people of different cultures, backgrounds, beliefs and gender. We pride ourselves on creating an optimal learning environment for the girls in our care and this includes having a healthy mix of influencers – the real-life variety, not the ones on social media! Our male teachers and staff are essential to this mix, bringing diversity of thought, lived experience, and professional skills to our community.

Thank you to all the students, parents and staff members who have put a great deal of thought and care into honouring our dads with a series of events across the College. Last weekend, our Boarders hosted an early Father’s Day barefoot bowling day in Sydney for those who were able to join them. It was wonderful to see dads, granddads and other family members travel from as far as Darwin and Alice Springs for this special occasion, which is now a regular fixture of the Boarding calendar.

This weekend, our Year 5 dads and daughters will be camping out overnight at Vision Valley, and all fathers and father figures in our community are invited to join us next week for the K-12 Father’s Day breakfast from 7.00am to 8.15am on Friday 6 September in the Junior School. You can still book your tickets here – but hurry, reservations close at midnight tonight.

Family means everything to me, and I am so grateful that my own dad will be sitting at my table on Sunday for our big, noisy family brunch. However, I am conscious that Father’s Day can be difficult for some. For those whose fathers are no longer in their lives, please know you are in our thoughts.

Windows into Learning

This week’s Junior School Window into Learning is perfect for our Father’s Day edition. Dad of two and creative extraordinaire, Mr Schweinberger, perfectly captures the unique combination of skills required to produce our fabulous musicals with our youngest students. Love it! With thanks also to our fabulous Year 10 students, Emily, Lily, Cindy and Jocelyn for their reflection on a visit from a celebrated author.

Learning through performance in Years 1 and 2

Working with the youngest members of our College community during the rehearsal process for the Year 1 and 2 performance of Porridge – The Musical has been an absolute joy. These young students are like sponges, soaking up every direction with enthusiasm and a genuine eagerness to learn. It’s remarkable to see how they rise to the occasion when high standards for excellence are set. Though their stage directions need to be highly scaffolded, they deliver in leaps and bounds. One of the challenges has been keeping their focus during scenes when they are not directly involved in the action. Their minds naturally wander, and finding ways to keep them engaged as active listeners has been an ongoing challenge. For me, humour, paired with linking dialogue and scenes to situations relevant to such young students has been particularly effective. The most rewarding moments are when they have the light bulb moment and you see the understanding dawn on their faces. These instances of comprehension and connection make the entire process deeply fulfilling.

Mr Kurt Schweinberger
Head of Creative and Performing Arts K-6

Author Q and A session for Year 10

We were fortunate to have the opportunity to interview author Suzy Zail to celebrate Book Week. Suzy’s latest book, Inkflower, is the winner of the Shadow Judging prize for Older Readers in the CBCA Book of the Year Awards.

The stories Suzy told us about her own life and the people she based her stories on were so inspiring, and really put our own experiences into perspective. Some of the women she had interviewed for her books included: a blind mother, women who are forced into arranged marriages, a mother who ended up in prison and separated from her children, and women who were fighting for their education. She gave so many useful tips on how to get inspiration for writing stories, and how to motivate yourself when writing. We especially found her father’s story and his perseverance throughout the Holocaust inspiring and impressive. After all the trauma that he had gone through, he still kept a positive outlook on life. We were inspired by his optimism and resilience enduring the terrible conditions at Auschwitz.

We also gained valuable insights into her writing process, including how she developed her characters, plot, and her planning technique. We learnt so much from Suzy during this enjoyable and educational experience. 

Emelia Caulfield, Lily Still, Cindy Xu and Jocelyn Ying (Year 10)