From the Principal
There are so many highlights of this week but four moments of pure joy spring to mind.
1) A surprise personal delivery of homemade cupcakes by sweet Emily Walker in Year 6 who is clearly crushing her Smart Cookies co-curricular course. Emily has been on a delightful mission to feed me up each Monday afternoon with treats, which I’m loving!
2) Hearing all about the good, the bad, and everything in between regarding Wise Phones from Year 7 Bennet A Compass Group yesterday as they joined me in my office for fairy bread and fruit.
3) Being shown a student’s tiny tooth, lovingly taped onto a tooth fairy card by Mrs Hilary Alo-Emile in 1A on Wednesday after it had fallen out during morning tea. I’m hoping the Tooth Fairy was generous ;).
4) Watching Head Prefects Emily Abadee and Ang-Ya Koo, along with all of Year 12, put on the greatest show to officially launch their ‘It’s 2025 Come Alive’ theme for the year at Tuesday’s assembly.
Congratulations to Jasmine Economou, Allison Wang, Indianna Joyce, Isabella Xie, Andelle Parker and Charlotte Ford for collaborating on the fabulous banner artwork, Madison Van Cleef and Zoe Rose for their showstopping aerial silks routine, and Ang-Ya and Emily, our fabulous ringmasters. The girls came to us with an ambitious idea, and, thanks to the support of the cohort and phenomenal organisational skills and rigorous risk assessment by Ms Rockwell, we were able to help them create the launch of their dreams. As we always say to the students, if you can dream it, you can do it, at Pymble. And, wow, our girls certainly dreamed big, as you can see from this clip!
It’s exciting to watch the different ways our Prefects are using their 2025 theme and influence as leaders of the school to positively impact students across the College. Over in Lang, Marden, Goodlet and Avonmoore Houses, for instance, our Boarding Head Prefects Sophie Laing and Celeste McDermott have dived further into ‘Come Alive’ to emerge with ‘togetherness’ as the key to our Boarders thriving in 2025 – and our day girls and families are warmly invited to join in on all the fun!
Supporting our Boarding ‘sisters’ to thrive in 2025
But first, a few fun facts. Most of our Boarding Houses sit at the heart of our College, which is appropriate as our Boarders are with us day and night throughout each term and are considered the heart of our community. This year, our Boarding Houses are home to a record number of students across Years 7 to 12 – two of whom are fourth generation Pymble Boarders. Broken down into year groups, we have 18 Boarders in Year 7, 19 in Year 8, 27 in Year 9, 25 in Year 10, 25 in Year 11 and 33 in Year 12 – that’s 147 Boarding ‘sisters’ in total, hailing predominantly from regional New South Wales, as well as from the Northern Territory, Queensland and nine other countries ranging from nearby Indonesia to Colorado in the USA.
When I first arrived here in 2019, we had 108 Boarders. This growth is a testament to the wonderful Boarding program we have at Pymble, which in turn is led by our fabulous staff and Director of Boarding, Mrs Carolyn Burgess. It also speaks volumes about the trust our Boarding families place in us to care for their daughters for the better part of the year. As always, we thank them for this gift of trust, along with the love and support they give to the College.
Speaking with Mrs Burgess about the year ahead, she mentioned her deep gratitude for our day school students and their families who play an important role in helping our Boarders to thrive during their time at Pymble. We have many kind and caring day girls and parents who regularly include Boarders in their plans for weekends, afternoon teas, family dinners and outings, as well as travel to and from co-curricular training and competitions. Being welcomed into the happy chaos of normal family life means a great deal to our Boarding girls and is a huge comfort to their families back home. Most of us can’t imagine what it feels like to drop your young daughter at school at the start of a term and then drive – or fly – home without her, but that’s the reality for our 147 Pymble students and their families, four times each year.
So, in 2025 we warmly invite day girls and families to consider engaging with our Boarders outside of the school day as this ‘togetherness’ really does support all our girls to come alive and thrive. Our well-established Boarding Family Friends (BFF) program encourages day students to extend their friendships with Boarders to include spending time in their homes, weekend visits, sleepovers, or perhaps watching each other’s sports matches or performances. In return, day girl BFFs are welcomed into the Boarding Houses for afternoon tea, pizza nights and sleepovers, and sometimes even trips ‘back home’ with their Boarding friend in the holidays.
As our Boarders will tell you, BFFs bring great comfort and joy to their lives.
“The Naitos, to me, feel like a second family. They are always willing to go above and beyond, from taking me to sport, inviting me to dinner and even driving me to Lithgow when my flight was cancelled! I cannot thank them enough for their help, love and support!”
– Ellie Pointon, Year 10 Boarder from Forbes, NSW (who was heading out to Rugby with the Naito family when she wrote this!)
“A homecooked meal or being in a family setting makes a big difference to Boarding life. Like most Boarders, when I first started at Pymble, I struggled with being away from my home and my family. One of my earliest experiences was when a day friend invited me to stay at her house. The comfort of being surrounded by her family made being away from my home feel a lot easier. I am so grateful that Pymble has given me the opportunity to make lifelong friends not only in Boarding but also in the day school.”
– Poppy Barwick, Year 10 Boarder from Gravesend, NSW (whose mother and sisters were also Boarders at Pymble)
By way of a thank you for all the years of lifts to sport, overnight stays on the weekends, and friendships extended to their daughters, our Boarding parents have invited all Year 12 day parents to a regional weekend in Orange on Friday 21 and Saturday 22 March 2025. In case you missed it, you can find more details here.
It seems fitting to end this column with a heart-felt message from one of our Boarding parents. Scott Neilson is the father of Alice in Year 7, who joins us all the way from Japan, and speaks from his own experience as a Boarder and his family’s connection with Pymble Boarding through his grandmother, mother, aunt and wife. While he wrote these thoughts for our Year 7 Boarders at the start of their first year, it is equally relevant to all our girls, which is why I am sharing them more widely today, with Scott and Alice’s permission.
“Dear girls,
“Many of you will not be feeling confident right now for one reason or another, which is natural.
“Confidence does not come first. Confidence starts with a dream. I want to be a sports star. I want to be an actor. I want to be a musician. I want to go to Harvard or Oxford. You then need to think what you need to do to pursue that dream. This starts with small steps.
“So, you then need to act. There is no point staying in your head. You need to take action in the real world. Little by little every day. One per cent better every day adds up to 365 per cent better in a year. Soon you will look back down the mountain you climbed and be confident.
“You are all in this together. Support each other when you stumble or are feeling unsure. Some of these girls around you will be your best friends for life. I know this as a Boarder myself. Do not push each other down or rob each other of confidence. Pushing others down to make you feel better is a sign of insecurity. Instead, ask for help with that insecurity. Be vulnerable. Be fallible. We all are. Support each other in those moments when one of you is insecure or lacking confidence and the service you give will be treasured forever.
“And if you are not confident right now because you just want to fit in, that is normal. Flip the mindset to exploring and celebrating each other for your differences. The girls that can help you with maths. The girl that can sing. The girl that can tell great stories. The girl that can speak difference languages. The girl that one day will be Prime Minister. You can learn from each other’s strengths. Those differences are the fountain of your strength as a unit. They mean that, as a unit, you are full of greatness.
“From Scott, Ali’s Dad.”
Coming Alive in ’25 to me means community. It is about supporting one another through difficulties, laughter and having fun together, and ultimately using our diverse gifts and talents to be of service. Should you wish to be of service as a BFF in 2025, please contact our fabulous Deputy Head of Boarding, Ms Theresa Mimmo, who runs this program and will be more than happy to find ways to utilise your gifts and talents to support our Boarding community. You can contact her via boarding@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au.
Have a great rest of the week – and I hope to see many of you at Icebreaker tomorrow night, or perhaps at one of our ‘Pymble Comes to You‘ regional events later in the term.
