From Ms Allum

I hope you are all keeping safe and well in these strange new times. My thoughts and prayers have been with everyone in the School community.

I just had a couple of messages to bring to you today.

Wilkinson House

We wanted to let you know that we were notified late on Friday that the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) had approved our Masterplan DA for the site, but rejected our proposed demolition of Wilkinson House. The press release can be seen here.

You might have already seen this announcement in one of the media outlets, or on social media last weekend.

Whilst we were really pleased that they supported our overall vision for the long-term Masterplan of the School, we were disappointed that they didn’t approve our immediate plans for the redevelopment of Wilkinson House. The IPC has provided a lot of information about their decisions and their reasons, we are working through in a considered way. Our consultants are working with the School Board and others about the possible options going forward to ensure that Wilkinson House can become a premium education space.

We will continue to provide you with updates and let you know the way forward in due course.

COVID-19 and our protocols

Just a few particular reminders for parents – your health is really important, and we also want to look after our staff really really well. Remember that adult to adult transmission is the most significant risk in schools.

1. Please don’t come on to the school grounds unless it is absolutely necessary, and under no circumstances if you are at all unwell.
2. Please don’t congregate close to the Primary School gates when you are picking up your daughters. Please stand well clear from the gates, and from each other! You should be 1.5 metres away from each other, and also give staff the ability to move around to assist with students getting into cars etc.
3. Please be respectful of our staff in Reception and the School Shop. Please stand well back from staff and maintain a physical distance at all times.

Just as we have been saying to the girls and staff regularly, if you have any symptoms, no matter how mild, please do not come to school to pick up your daughter, or to purchase items from the School Shop, or for any other reason. Please follow the clear health advice  to ensure that we keep EVERYONE in the School community safe – including you!

Just a couple of other arrangements at the School Shop. If at all possible, I would ask you to email or phone through orders if you know what items you need for your daughter. We can deliver orders to Primary students and the Secondary girls can pick up their orders if we have them ready and waiting to be collected, and this can be a cashless transaction for everyone’s safety.

If you are waiting to be served at the Shop, please do wait outside in the courtyard, rather than crowding in the shop itself or the internal corridor leading to the Shop. We are trying to limit the number of customers at any one time, and ask that you only use the Shop only for essential purchases (you can still use items of the summer uniform if needed).

Best wishes to you all.

Sport News

We are back! We have lots of fitness and sports sessions back on offer for the remainder of this term. Everyone is welcome to join into nearly all activities. Please keep an eye out as schedules are posted on Cogito and emailed to all students.

At this stage we are starting to plan ahead for Term 3 in the hope that most activities will go ahead in some form. Everything is still obviously up in the air and subject to government guidelines but the current signs are looking promising. Over the upcoming weeks in Term 2 we will commence skills training and sports trials for Hockey, Basketball, Netball and Football in the Secondary School, along with Oztag training in the Primary School leading into the touch season next term.

Term 3 Sport Trials

IGSSA Hockey Trials

3.15pm – 5.00pm at CPSC Synthetic Turf, Robertson Road, Moore Park

A bus will transport players to and from the venue each week.

SAVE THE DATE: Term 3 Training Day for all Hockey teams
Tuesday July 21
8:00am – 12:00pm at David Phillips Sports Complex

Hockey Skills

Everyone in Years 7 -12 is  welcome to attend on Mondays from 7.00am – 8.00am on the Top Court to brush up on their Hockey skills.

Eastern Suburbs 5-a-Side Football Trials

Eastern Suburbs Basketball Competition Trials

6.45am – 8.00am at SCEGGS  Sports Hall and Top Court

IGSSA Netball Trials

Additional sessions for all players will be held on Friday mornings with Netfit 6:45am – 8:00am in the Sports Hall.

Saturday Trials, all players – June 13
8.00am – 12noon, more information to come

Primary Sport Information

Here is the Primary Sport timetable for Weeks 5-9.

Alison Gowan
Director of Sport

Drama News

The Audience                                                                                    

The precarious climate we now navigate has meant that many of our cultural encounters and expressions of art have succumbed to an abrupt stop. Theatres, cinemas and concert halls that hosted vast audience numbers in a shared experience of music and story-telling have fallen dark for the foreseeable future.

The power of an artform relies on its reception. Without an audience to respond it is merely an expression without purpose. The Mona Lisa in an art gallery might only be oils without your appreciation of its line and subject. The drama of Blanche DuBois is only hysterics without your empathy for her theatrical journey. Beethoven’s Ninth is a beautiful collaboration for the musicians of an orchestra but is so much more, when invested with your time, focus and aural embrace.

As physical distancing constraints begin to ease, a growth in the permitted size of public assemblies  is occurring. However, these numbers are understandably cautious and far from the previous numbers that society enjoyed, allowing us to gather in venues around Sydney. I sympathise for the artists around Australia, and the theatre companies, music venues and entertainment centres who have been prevented from expressing their art through to its complete realisation. To play to an audience concludes the transaction.

We see a plethora of artists moving to online platforms to make art and share it with an audience. Online choirs, play-readings, filmed stage productions, DJs spinning discs, tik-tok dance and music collaborations look to be the only way for us to access art. Our souls yearn for it. It gives us the emotional nourishment we crave. Artists have always been driven to find outlets for their creativity and vast imaginations. It has been reassuring that these urges still exist.

I’m sure positives will come out of this forced pause. Creativity is an element within all of us. Thinking “outside of the box” is essential in these challenging days. As I look online and hear stories of the arts and artists, I am distressed at the predicament their industry faces. I also watch them in awe as they find new ways to express their art and find an audience.

Let’s hope we can gather together as an audience and share in the communion that is live “theatre” before too long.

St Peter’s Players

Circumstances required us to move the after-hours Drama experience of the St Peter’s Players to an online platform in recent weeks. Many of our girls embraced the experience and the challenge of finding new ways to create, perform and appreciate drama via the Zoom technology.

A huge thanks to our tutors, Jodine Wolman and Romy Bartz, who led the classes and made the “at-home” engagement a fun and informative one.

The Primary and Secondary classes will now resume on-campus.

Production at SCEGGS

We were greatly disappointed to cancel the production of Ladies in Black that was scheduled for production in early June at The Eternity Playhouse. The cast were well into rehearsals and having a very rewarding time. Shut-down requirements meant that rehearsals could not take place, and our performance venue also ceased operation. I would hope that one day we might see this musical appear again as a SCEGGS production, but presently it is not possible to say when or how.

It is with much regret that I inform you that our November production of Pretty.Strange has been postponed. The school had commissioned old girl Olivia Satchell to write the play. She has been in workshops with students over the past year. As recently as week 2, we conducted a play-reading of the final draft, via Zoom, with students from the Year 11 Drama class, the Director Ms Rodda and the playwright. All agreed it has been a terrific project, resulting in a super play.

I know our school community and many keen students will be disappointed at this news. It is a decision we have contemplated at length. We consider it important to give the production the fanfare it deserves as a new Australian work and a world premiere. The COVID-19 situation would make it a challenging production time with so many outcomes unknown.

We look forward to presenting Pretty.Strange in 2021.

It is important that we do embrace a creative project. And strive for an audience engagement. A performance outcome will replace the Pretty.Strange production. It will be more manageable and will allow for the elements of surprise that lurk. Students will have the opportunity to contribute to and audition for a project that is presently in development. An announcement will be made in week 7.

Stay tuned.

And now we have arrived at this great fermata – a pause of unspecified length with no clear promise of what is to follow. Even the sound of a live orchestra, that enduring symbol of collaborative human potential, has been subdued.

Benjamin Northey
Principal Conductor in Residence – Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Peter Eyers
Head of Drama

Visual Arts News

Mindfulness Art Workshops                                              

Visual Arts Captain, Elenarose Plaister, will be running mindfulness art workshops for any keen students from Years 7 to 12. Elenarose will facilitate a quiet, friendly space where students can enjoy the process of creating works that are open ended and relaxing, and aim to help keep perspective and calm!

Come to JF4 on Thursdays from 1:15pm – 1:45pm.

Year 11 landscape exhibition

A selection of more works from the current Year 11 Landscape show.

We are unable to invite viewers in to see this great show so keep watching this space to see works from this beautiful, diverse series.

Heidi Jackson
Head of Visual Arts

Music Matters

“Welcome Back” from our Music Captain and Committee                                                                           

It is wonderful to have the return of students participating in our ensemble rehearsals onsite. To welcome the return of our students to their ensembles, we also have lovely “Welcome Back” messages from our Music Captain Erin Zikos and members of the Music Committee: Stella Gray (Rock), Annika Deitz (Choir) and Elenarose Plaister (Band) to share.

Music Captain Posters

Instrumental and Vocal Lessons

A reminder for all students to check their emails carefully for communication from their tutors for lesson times.  You must let your class teacher know 48 hours in advance if you have a lesson. If you cannot make your lesson time, you must let your tutors know well in advance. 

Pauline Chow
Head of Music

From the Senior Library

125 Years in 125 Days  – It is amazing to think that we have just completed our tenth week of counting down to the School’s birthday!

To celebrate our boarders returning to school this week, we decided to rearrange our festivities and feature the life of our boarders through the decades. Beatrice Lee from Kelso, near Bathurst, was SCEGGS’ first boarder arriving within the first few days of the School opening.

With very few schools open in many parts of NSW, boarding provided an important opportunity for country girls to receive a school education. Did you know, until the mid-1920s, nearly 30% of our students were boarders?

The 1903 boarder photograph was a great way to start our weeklong look at girls who were once part of the boarding life at SCEGGS. It is great to contrast the clothing of these early SCEGGS boarders with those from last year. (Please click on the thumbnail below to view the photos in full).

Alongside these formal photographs, the Archive has amazing images of our boarders from the 40s, 50s and 60s. These more informal photographs give us just a glimpse into the lives of our boarders.  (Please click on the thumbnail below to view the photos in full).

We also featured images depicting activities from the 70s and 80s where food, sport and friendship were key. A final image shows Ms Bowman posing with boarders on the same day she announced her retirement in 1995. (Please click on the thumbnail below to view the photos in full).

We hope the boarders have enjoyed being back with us this week and that everyone has delighted in our glimpse back to an important part of our School history. As Ruth Adams in the Wilkinson House Report in LUX 1988 summarises, “Boarding offers so many things – chief among them is the great feeling of community and an extra sense of involvement in school life…”

Last week’s quiz asked readers to identify the Old Girl in the 50s and 60s themed dance photograph. Our Old Girls on their Facebook page, rightly identified TV journalist Celina Edmonds, though there was more variance in answers as to which year it was – 1988.

Remember to view the countdown so far, via our Cognito Senior Library page. Scroll down and click on the “Celebrating 125” to view, or follow this link. Watch the videos as we near 50 days to go to the birthday celebrations!

Friday’s quiz question: Can you name any of the different locations around the school where the boarders have lived?

Dorothy Wilkinson Memorial Library and Archives

Year 10 Immunisation Program

NSW Health offers all school students free vaccinations recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council. These vaccines are important and protect students through to adulthood.

All Year 10 Students will be offered the meningococcal ACWY vaccine on Thursday 11 June. An information pack has been sent home to Year 10 parents which includes a consent form and a record of vaccination for parents to keep after their child has been vaccinated.

Please sign the consent form and have your daughter return it to Student Services by Monday 1 June, UNLESS you do not wish your daughter to be vaccinated. Please note: the nurses will be unable to vaccinate any student if their form is not signed by their parent or guardian.