From the Principal
Happy new year from all of us here at Pymble. We have enjoyed a great break after a fabulous year and our students have returned with great enthusiasm!
2022 was the year we focused on taking a creative approach to learning. Our theme, Let’s Get Creative: Dream. Think. Make it happen, inspired Pymble students and staff to design, launch and engage in a wide range of future-focused learning opportunities, including:
- Our K-12 Outdoor Education Continuum, which offers a series of increasingly challenging outdoor education programs to build our girls’ resilience, independence and connection with self, others and the environment.
- An inaugural Kindness Convention hosted by Year 5 Pymble girls and attended by 18 local schools to inspire students to change their world through kindness.
- Junior School STEM Festival and STEM curriculum for Kindergarten to Year 6.
- Introduction to Data Science Course for students in Years 9 to 12 – Pymble is the first school in the southern hemisphere to offer this course, in partnership with UCLA.
- A student-led Ethics Committee to provide real-world experience and support work undertaken by students, staff and associates of our Pymble Institute Research Centre.
- Community football match and cultural festival supporting newly arrived Afghan refugees and their families.
- The inaugural [EX]plore conference for Science Extension students and teachers, in partnership with Macquarie University.
- Future You Careers Festival for Year 10 to identify skills, abilities and interests, and develop interview and workplace skills.
Academic excellence
It was such a joy to see our girls continue to excel academically throughout the year.
In the prestigious da Vinci Decathlon, our Year 5 and Year 6 teams both placed second overall, and our Year 8 team won the national competition. Our brilliant mathematicians in the Junior School entered the Investigating with Mathematics competition where our Year 2 team won the group category and one of our Year 5 students won the Individual Category. In the Mathematics Olympiad, our Year 6 Extension Group placed in the top 10 per cent of junior teams overall.
In NAPLAN testing, most results for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 fell into the top two bands, which is impressive.
Long before HSC results were released in December, our Class of 2022 received 411 early entry places at university and, for their practical work in Drama, Dance and Music, 47 nominations to showcase their work at the post HSC exhibitions of the best work in the state.
When official results came in, we were delighted to see our Dux of School, Chloe Hoang, was one of only 48 students in the state to receive the top score of 99.95 – Chloe also placed first in the state for English Extension 1. Nine students placed in state rankings for one or more subject, and 28 students made the state’s All-Rounder List for having achieved Band 6 or E4 in 10 or more units studied.
Pymble is on an upward trajectory academically; this has been a strategic focus of ours and the results are paying dividends. It was exciting to see the College rank 20th in the state in the Sydney Morning Herald list of HSC 2022 Top Schools. We are proud of all our students for their commitment to their studies, their contribution to life at Pymble and for embracing the call to be creative in their approach to learning.
Click here to read our HSC highlights
Pymble Gives Back in 2023
This year, our College theme is Pymble Gives Back and we look forward to creating a series of opportunities for our Pymble family to be of service to those in need in our community. We will be supporting several charities, including Wayside Chapel, Dignity and The Smith Family and, most importantly, we will continue to develop our college-wide focus on giving. Through these experiences, we hope to develop in our students a life-long habit of using their gifts and talents to be of service in the world.
We take the responsibility of developing our students into influential and compassionate women who will change the world with the utmost seriousness. Thank you for considering Pymble for your daughter’s education, and please let us know if you would like to be involved in some way with our giving back initiative.
Signing off with our 2022 Year in Review video, which is a true delight to share with you. Please enjoy!
