From the Senior School

From the Head of Senior School

The final week of Term 1 has finished with a flourish, with many events for the students. I have been asking them to reflect upon their efforts and growth this term, encouraging them to take pride in meeting challenges and stretching themselves. The students in Year 11 have made a very successful transition to Senior School and are already establishing a wonderful climate of co-operation, diligence and maturity.

The term break will provide a welcome opportunity to rest and recharge and the Year 12 students should balance this against maintaining a routine of academic revision and preparation for Term 2. This will ensure that they begin Term 2 rested and ready to embark upon their work next term.

Assessment and reflection

Many students in Years 11 and 12 will be receiving their results from some recent assessment tasks. This is a great opportunity to discuss your daughter’s progress with her and reinforce the messages that have been given at school. Most specifically, the key point of reflecting on assessment tasks is to use these as a diagnostic tool – they help reveal your areas of strength, and areas that need further attention. They can also be of use when reviewing strategies for preparation and revision – to consider how you prepared and was that a helpful routine, or can some changes be made to ensure that you are better prepared?

Best wishes to all Senior School families for a restful and happy term break. To those who are away from home, safe travels. Thank you to parents for all your support over the past term. It is always very much appreciated.

Uniform

Please take the time to review your daughter’s uniform over the break. A number of students need to ensure that their skirt length is in line with our uniform code. Please refer to the student diary (page 25) to review details of the winter school uniform, which will be worn from the beginning of next term.

Robotics

From Friday 23 March to Tuesday 2 April a group of Year 11 students, including me, travelled to Las Vegas to compete in the 2024 FRC Las Vegas Regional to represent Pymble’s robotics team, 6510 Pymble Pride. The trip was very exciting as we were able to do many fun activities including exploring the Las Vegas strip and visiting the M&M store. We even toured an American high school – which looked a lot like the school from High School Musical!

FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) is an international robotics competition for students in Years 9 to 12. Each year a new FRC game is released and the challenge is to design, build and program a robot that can play the game in six weeks. This year the challenge was to score large foam rings into a goal and hang on a metal chain. The robots are ~56kg and the field is the size of a basketball court. The competition at Las Vegas was intense, and there were many incredible teams competing including the 2023 World Champions. It was also amazing to meet so many teams from all over, including a team from Taiwan and the Netherlands.

Our team made it to the playoffs, however we were eventually eliminated. At the end of the competition we were awarded the Autonomous Award for our reliable autonomous code, and I was awarded the Dean’s List Finalist Award, for my technical contributions to the team and commitment to promoting STEM in my community.

Overall, the trip and competition were extremely rewarding experiences, and we have made memories that will last for a lifetime. Congrats to Sophia Chang, Ashley Chow, Aria Patel, Rachel Moon, and Aysel Gupta for their amazing efforts.

Written by Ang-Ya Koo (Year 11)

The Dean’s List Awards

Congratulations too, to two members of the team who are the recipients of the presitigious Dean’s List Award – Ang-Ya Koo and Sophia Chen. This recognises the leadership and dedication of the FIRST robotics program’s most outstanding secondary school students. It is given to students who have led their team and community to increased awareness of STEM and robotics, whilst achieving personal technical expertise and accomplishment.

Lunch with the Swifts

On Thursday 4 April, a few of the Year 11 and 12 netballers were fortunate enough to attend the 2024 Swifts Season Launch out at Netball Central. This was such an amazing opportunity to meet and engage with the players.

At the launch, each player received their official dresses for the upcoming 2024 season. Bella Walker, the captain of netball, and myself had the honour of presenting Sophie Fawns and Sarah Klau with their 2024 season dresses. This was personally my favourite part of the day and certainly the most memorable. Another highlight was catching up with Grace Whyte who graduated last year and is now a training partner for the team. Overall, the day was outstanding and an incredible experience for all that attended.

Written by Sophie

Immersion Day

I had a great experience at ACU (Australian Catholic University) on Immersion day. Having the opportunity to try out different university degrees and seeing what uni life may be like was so interesting. I took part in a Sports and Exercise Science course and an Occupational Therapy course, they were both really fascinating courses and opened up new interests to me. I really enjoyed seeing different parts of the campus and the separate co-curricular activities they had available. Overall, it was a really fun day and helped me understand what I may want to do at university later on!

Written by Tully

Last Thursday, Year 11 had the privilege of going on our University Immersion Day, in which we chose between UNSW, ACU and UTS to participate in a variety of courses including health, science, art and engineering. I attended the Australian Catholic University, where we had an enjoyable and insightful day experiencing daily campus life. It was a great opportunity to learn about a university I hadn’t previously known much about, through independently travelling to the campus, learning about the courses and social life and getting to know other students in my year group with similar interests as me. I went to two workshops; nursing and occupational therapy, and I especially liked how they were led by current university students. My favourite part of the day was when we visited the practical rooms, which are used in classes and exams to mimic hospital environments. I really enjoyed Immersion day, it was a great day to learn more about the courses, career pathways and student life.

Written by Abby

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend Immersion Day at UNSW. It provided me with a firsthand look into university life. We began with a campus tour were they showed us the array of facilities that they had as well as all the different activities they run every day such as free smoothies and painting classes. We also found out that the Kensington campus is so big that it has its own postcode!

Throughout the day we participated in three different sessions that were run by UNSW professors. Each of the sessions we participated in we were able to pick before attending the day and we had a lot of different options. In these mini classes we created floating structures, played an economics computer game and got to break apart plastic structures.

Lunch was great because we got to pick from a wide variety of food options like GYG and Share Tea and (although it was raining) we were able to sit and chat with our friends about our day so far.

Overall the day was amazing because we were able to complete fun activities with our friends and also begin to think about what we want to do and where to go once we graduate. I had a great time building different objects and listening to the professors and students. I can’t wait to go to the open day later on this year.

Written by Freya

The Year 11 immersion excursion provided a chance for us to experience the life of a university student for a day, including participating in workshops that showcased the diverse courses the university offered, buying morning tea and lunch with other students, and organising travel to and from the campus. This allowed us to involve ourselves in factors such as the day-to-day life of a student, determining if certain courses were of interest, and the dynamics of travelling across such a large campus. I felt that the excursion was quite effective in depicting these aspects of university life, and helped me to further understand what my next few years might look like, and an overall enjoyable experience.

Written by Mary

Food for Thought

Last Thursday, the Year 12s enjoyed a special lunch with some of our lovely 2023 graduates, who very kindly volunteered their time. These recent graduates shared their HSC journey with the current Year 12s, providing advice and support. It was a great afternoon to catch up with them all and hear where they are heading in this next stage after school.

Our keynote speaker was Annika Mounstephens (ESU, 2018). She shared an inspiring story of taking opportunities as they present themselves, and the importance of learning and building your ‘toolkit’ along the way. Recently graduated from UNSW with a degree in Economics and Neuroscience, she is now working in a consulting position in the field of technology. She enjoyed a year living in Canada before using her entrepreneurial talent, starting her own business during her years of study.

Annika framed her speech around five (or six) key ideas, which really resonated with the girls and recent graduates:

#1 Be kind to yourself in the face of big changes. “This is ok, this is a work in progress.”

#2 Look after your mates.. and let them look after you.

#3 Reframe what uncertainty means to you.. its not all grim shudders!

#4 Don’t tell me you “can’t”… you always have choices.

#5 Invest in skills – Now is the time to fill up your toolbox.

Bonus/#6 … CHILL!

Sincerest thanks to Annika, our recent graduates and the staff who worked so hard to bring this wonderful event to our students.