From the Principal

Congratulations to our students and staff on reaching the halfway point of the school year, and a massive round of applause for our musicians (and their support crew!) who delivered a magnificent finale to Term 2 last night with the Concerto Competition and Ensemble Concert. The quality of performances was truly second to none! A special congratulations to Ashleigh O’Young (on clarinet) and Gabrielle Zhong (on cello), whose outstanding musicianship was on display as our two Concerto Competition performers and reflected the standard I see at professional concerts.

Thank you to our Pymble staff for another term of enthusiastically dedicating your time to the development of our students in whatever pursuits they undertake; your commitment and care is deeply appreciated.

Thank you also to all our wonderful parents and carers. We’ve loved having you on campus and appreciated your involvement in so many shared events and activities in Term 2. You are our Very Important Partners (VIPs) in your daughters’ learning journeys at Pymble and we are truly grateful for your ongoing support. 🙏🏻

In the upcoming holidays, we have students travelling locally and internationally to participate in a range of external sports, activities and learning programs, ranging from rowing in the Henley Royal Regatta to competing in the Artistic Gymnastics Border Challenge and studying at the Oxford Royale summer school. More than 190 of our Senior students, supported by a team of dedicated staff, will be making the most of their time to prepare for their upcoming HSC trials in Term 3 at our HSC Study Camp. Whether you are working through the holidays, representing Pymble in your passions, heading off to exciting destinations or having a staycation at home, my hope is you also find time to rest, reflect and find some Tiny Little Joys over the next few weeks – but more on TLJs in just a moment.

First, I’d like to take a moment to extend my sincere and grateful thanks to two staff members who have gone above and beyond to be of service to our girls and staff this semester.

Thank you to our co-Acting Deputy Principals

I often speak to the girls about the joy of being of service; using your heart, your gifts, and your talents to genuinely give of yourself to other people. At the beginning of the year, our Director of Academic Excellence, Jake Plaskett and Director of Studies, Natasha Stanfield kindly agreed to take on the additional (and demanding) role of co-Acting Deputy Principals – Academic for the first half of this year. This enabled Justin Raymond and Lamia Rockwell to start in their new Deputy Principal roles from January, and gave the College time to undertake a global recruitment search for the ideal candidate, Mrs Christine Kenny, who commences in Term 3. Mr Plaskett and Mrs Stanfield already had demanding positions and took on this additional responsibility with grace, wisdom and passion. Their generosity of time, leadership and energy has been a tremendous gift to our students and staff, and to me, personally; thank you both for being of service to our College.

The science of Tiny Little Joys

Which brings me back to Tiny Little Joys, a timely topic as students and many of our staff head into the holiday period.

The idea of intentionally noticing a Tiny Little Joy each day or, ideally, several times a day, is based on neuroscience. As research professor and life coach Dr Catherine Mary McDonald explains in this clip, our brains are designed to automatically imprint negative experiences – this is natural and serves to keep us safe from harm. Joyful experiences, on the other hand, need to be manually imprinted so that our brains become used to, and start looking for, positivity in our lives.

We can choose to let go of some of the bad experiences we hold onto by noticing joyful things we encounter as we go about our day. This could be as simple as seeing something that reminds you of a special person or time, hearing your favourite song, or appreciating the beauty of nature.

After showing the clip to Years 5 to 12 in Combined Assembly yesterday, I shared a few of my own Tiny Little Joys, including having several students stop and say hello to me as I was making my way to the assembly. This brought me enormous joy because the best parts of my day are when I’m spending time in conversation with our students! Thank you, girls, you really made my day.  

Having Years 5 and 6 join the ‘big girls’ at this assembly also brought me great joy – all those eager and engaged faces! To honour their presence, I asked a few of our Junior School girls to come to the podium to share their Tiny Little Joys, which ranged from playing musical instruments, to writing poetry to share with their family, interactions with pets, playing basketball, and, the answer that brought the house down, “my lunch!”. Witnessing the entire assembly cheer, applaud and support each of our courageous Junior School girls as they revealed a little piece of themselves was perhaps the greatest joy of all.

Signing off for Term 2 with all best wishes for a wonderful three weeks before Term 3 begins on Tuesday 18 July. Be well, stay safe and keep an eye out for all those Tiny Little Joys that are just waiting for you to notice.

Dr Kate Hadwen, Principal