From the Upper School

A message from Mr Riley, Head of Upper School

An incredibly happy Norwuz to our Persian families!

Our Upper School Assembly had to quickly change tack on Tuesday as our Police Liaison Officer, Lynda Hart, was unable to attend to give her anti-violence presentation. Instead, it was lovely to celebrate the achievements and efforts of our girls, in particular our CIS Awards, Duke of Edinburgh Awards, and Freya Howes who spoke beautifully about service-learning options as part of Pymble Gives Back.

We also celebrated our amazing musical, A Chorus Line. Specialty dancers Emily Rothery and Alexandra Stansall have kindly provided the overview below:

Pymble’s recent musical of A Chorus Line was a huge success. Opening night was filled with excitement, anticipation and definitely lots of nerves from the cast! The outcome was spectacular with tickets selling out, full houses every night and lots of positive feedback from the staff, students and parents that came to watch. To make this amazing production possible, extensive efforts were put into every rehearsal, leading up to the three performances. The rehearsals were filled with dedication from everyone, from learning the choreography, and memorising the catchy song lyrics and dialogue, to remembering queues and preparing costumes.

We were specialty dancers in the dancers ensemble, and this was an experience that we will never forget. We thoroughly enjoyed working with people from different schools with a variety of amazing talents that we got to learn from. This production taught us so much about confidence, determination and responsibility in our roles and as a cast. We were able to grow through challenging ourselves by going outside of our comfort zones each rehearsal and increasing our confidence in areas that we were already familiar with.

The production team was phenomenal with their capabilities to put together such an amazing musical in under 6 weeks. The cast will be forever grateful for all their efforts that were put into this musical, and a special thanks to Mr Griffiths who directed this amazing performance and believed in us, encouraged us and motivated us to keep going at all times.

The experience of being in a Pymble production with people from other schools and other years is one like no other and the memories we have made will stay with us beyond school.

Finally, I flag an excerpt from our Lead Psychologist’s (Andrew Scott) presentation at our recent Information Night. Andrew spoke to the role of parents in the Upper School in being both the guiding and welcoming hands in the ‘Circle of Security’.

He encouraged all parents to support their children’s exploration, to encourage their (hopefully safe) risk taking, but to also be the supportive, welcoming hands as their children return for guidance, support and comfort. With the holidays approaching, this serves as a wonderful opportunity for our parents to be the guiding hands as their daughters begin to further explore and test boundaries.

Congratulations!

Amber Li (Year 9) has just received a gold certificate in the Australian Mathematics Olympiad and Alicia Ge (Year 11) has received an honourable mention. This competition was invitation only and consisted of two four-hour papers which the girls did in February this year. Amber was within the top 15 students in the country to sit the Olympiad. Congratulations girls!

Year 10 Dance Excursion

On Sunday March 19 our students had the opportunity to experience the magic of contemporary dance at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, viewing a diverse triple bill of works by Sydney Dance Company titled Ascent. The earlier performance time meant we were able to enjoy the harbour views and summery weather in addition to beautiful and cutting edge dance works.

The bill encompasses three works including one by SDC’s Artistic Director Raphael Bonachela, I Am-Ness, which had everyone mesmerised by the seamless connections between the four dancers who moved as a single organism until the final moments, demonstrating the nuances of human connection. Antony Hamilton’s work had the audience on the edge of their seats with its awe – inspiring mash – up of electronic music, high fashion and a futuristic exploration of order and chaos. The diversity of the works presented really broadened perspectives on what dance can be and the incredible sensory impact it has in a live context.

Our students were enthusiastic and engaged throughout the entire experience. They had the opportunity to reflect on their own experiences with dance and how they could incorporate the techniques and themes of Ascent into their own performances. The performance also gave them an opportunity to see how professional dancers work in a collaborative environment, which we believe will inspire them to continue pursuing their own passions in dance.

We would like to extend our thanks to the Sydney Dance Company for providing such an incredible opportunity to our students. We are also grateful to the teachers who helped organise and chaperone the excursion, and to the students themselves for representing Pymble Ladies College with such grace and enthusiasm.

Overall, the excursion was a fantastic success and we look forward to providing more opportunities for our students to experience the wonder and beauty of the arts in the future.