From the Principal
Happy Boarders’ Week to the 130 students in Years 7 to 12 who call our campus home during term time. This is your time to shine as we celebrate who you are, the place you call home when you are not living on our beautiful campus, and ‘what makes you tick?’, this year’s theme for National Boarding Week. According to the Boarders themselves, playing games at night, sharing dinner or a cup of tea with friends, end of term Chapel Services, Community Weekends, hanging out with other year groups, and spending Prep/Study time together makes them tick. A false fire alarm going off at 2.00am, not so much. Sorry girls, but we take no chances protecting our most precious assets. 💕
The week is also an opportunity to celebrate our incredible Boarding staff, who are top of the list of ‘what makes our Boarders tick?’ given they care so deeply for the girls 24/7. In addition to managing the big issues for our students living in Avonmoore, Marden, Goodlet and Lang House, our dedicated Boarding staff assist with so many little things like washing, changing sheets, pick-ups and drop-offs, cutting up fruit just the way someone likes it, and, in general, being a great listener. A huge thank you also goes to our army of supporters, aka our day girls, day staff, and our wonderful Boarding Family and Friends (BFFs) who provide outings, friendship, lifts, meals, sleepovers, and another home away from home for our Boarders when needed. 💙❤️
We send much love to our Boarding families ‘back home’, knowing they miss their daughters as much as their daughters miss them, especially on days like Mother’s Day last weekend. Boarding families place enormous trust in the College to ensure their children are loved, supported and feel a sense of belonging as they live and learn at Pymble, a responsibility we never take lightly. It was a joy to reconnect with many of our current and future students and families from Dubbo, Narromine, Trangie, Brewarina, Wellington, Mendoora, Collie, Mudgee, Canowindra and Walgett last weekend at a local event attended by several Pymble staff, along with our Chair of the Board, Mr Chris Fydler OAM, and his wife, Rose. Having had four daughters attend the College and form significant friendships with Boarders during their school years, Chris and Rose appreciate the significant contribution our Boarders make to the College and the role our Pymble family plays in supporting each student to thrive. We look forward to many more opportunities to meet and reconnect with Pymble Boarders of the past, present and future.
Pymble is now an Australian Olympic Pathway School
In other exciting news, last Saturday we had the absolute honour of being formally recognised by the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) as an Australian Olympic Pathway School. It may not surprise you to learn that Pymble is the first independent school in Australia to be given this Olympic designation – although this is certainly not something that just happened overnight!
To be recognised as an Australian Olympic Pathway School, a school must meet strict criteria set by the AOC and have a well-established elite athlete development program that includes Olympic Sports.
Currently, the College offers 20 Olympic Sports in our world-class facilities, supported by world-class coaches and staff. This includes four-time Olympian Lauren Jackson AO who is now heading up our Basketball Academy, and three-time Olympian Melinda Gainsford-Taylor AM who has coached athletics at Pymble for the past eight years, in addition to many other leaders in their fields.
We also have our Pymble Elite Sportswomen’s Program (PESP), which was established in 2007 to cater for the training, competing, wellbeing and academic learning needs of student athletes who compete at an elite level.
We were fortunate to be joined on Saturday by Lauren, Melinda and several of our Olympian alumni, including Chloe Dalton OAM (2011), Dr Mackenzie Little (2014), Brittany O’Brien (2016), and Danielle Scott (2007), who all spoke highly of the decades of hard work by our coaches, staff and athletes to establish Pymble as a school of sporting and academic excellence.
Best of all was seeing the excitement among our girls, many of whom are working hard to follow their dreams of competing in front of a home crowd at Brisbane 2032. As we always say to the girls, “If you can dream it, you can do it, at Pymble.”
A huge shout-out to our Director of Sport, Mr Adam Raw, for managing all the behind-the-scenes work to secure this AOC recognition, our Co-ordinator of PESP, Ms Skye Halliday, who has been running our highly successful elite sportswomen’s program for many years, and all our coaches, managers, teachers and staff who work so hard to deliver excellence in all they do.
Our students are truly blessed to have all the support in the world from our world-class team of champions here at Pymble.
