Choosing one school over another comes down to a shared vision for your daughter. Principal Dr Kate Hadwen shares her top 10 reasons for considering Pymble Ladies’ College.
An all-girls’ school will best support your daughter
While it is important to have choice in the market, we firmly believe in the enormous amount of data from Australia and all around the world that proves a single-sex learning environment leads to better outcomes than a co-educational school for girls. This data comes from excellent research by highly regarded academics and has been brought together by the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools (ICGS), of which I am a Board director.
Essentially, compared to girls in co-ed schools, girls in all-girls’ schools achieve higher academic results, which we routinely see in Australia in NAPLAN, HSC and PISA testing. They also have a greater sense of social and emotional wellbeing, confidence and self-esteem, competitive spirit and willingness to take risks with their learning, participation in STEM subjects, and participation in sport and physical education.
Put simply, a girls’ school offers the best learning environment for your daughter because every facet of educational design, from classroom dynamics to co-curricular offerings, is carefully crafted with her in mind. In this environment, she is unreservedly the focal point, empowered to develop and voice her opinions, explore her identity, and follow her dreams without limitations.
We also believe in providing authentic opportunities to work alongside boys
While we remain proudly and resolutely a single-sex school, we are committed to supporting our girls to develop healthy social skills and mutually respectful relationships with their male peers. We partner with boys’ schools, locally, nationally and globally to create a series of authentic and meaningful opportunities for our students to learn and grow together over the years — more than just a one-off end-of-year social. Just a few examples of our co-educational programs include Billycart Making and Racing for Year 5 with St Ignatius College, Riverview; our four-week, tech-free, Year 9 Residential Program at Vision Valley in partnership with Anglican Church Grammar School (Churchie) in Brisbane; and our combined Swimming Club with Knox Grammar School boys. Excitingly, we are also in discussion with several boys’ schools in the UK who are interested in joining our Year 9 Residential Program at Vision Valley. Watch this space!
Our ground-breaking Year 9 Residential Program
This is such an exciting — dare I say, world-leading — program that really sets Pymble apart from other schools. Vision Valley is our 100+ acre Outdoor Education campus located in a bushland setting just 45 minutes away from our main campus on the North Shore. It is also home to our Outdoor Education Continuum (OEC) for K-12, a series of progressively more challenging outdoor activities and adventures, which starts in Kindergarten and builds up over the years, to encourage teamwork, relationship skills, resilience, courage and independence. The Year 9 Residential Program is our flagship OEC program where students live communally in designated girls’ or boys’ lodges under the supervision and care of our experienced Outdoor Education team for four consecutive weeks, including weekends. Without phones (and therefore social media), students live, learn, play, explore and discover how to make friends and relate to one another in a face-to-face, real life, natural environment. We think it’s an absolute game changer in terms of the character development of our young people and are thrilled to see the evidence gathered to date showing that students who participate in this program report a greater sense of self-efficacy, belonging and confidence than they had prior to attending.
We know and care about each individual student
Pymble is known for its excellent pastoral care. We are blessed to have capacity to resource the school to ensure our teachers and co-curricular staff are well supported to expertly care for your daughter. We see it as part of our mission to understand the uniqueness of each student and to help guide them to find their ‘thing’ at Pymble.
Our wellbeing teams are trained, highly skilled professionals who work tirelessly to support positive outcomes for all our girls. We work alongside a Mental Healthcare Advisory Committee who guide and support decisions regarding policies, procedures and the programs we implement.
It would be our pleasure to show you in more detail how our wellbeing support structures, which include six psychologists and three nurses, will support the care of your daughter from her youngest years through to completing her HSC in Year 12.
“We are a boarding school … with 2000+ day students”
I love this explanation of Pymble! It was gifted to me from one of our boarding Dads several years ago and has always struck a chord. As a country girl who attended boarding school from the age of 10, I know how important a boarding community is in shaping the culture of a school.
We continue to invest in our boarding facilities and this year we opened a bespoke Year 7 boarding house in one of our renovated homes onsite. What makes our boarding family unique is the quality of care offered by our staff and the fact that most of our students come from regional NSW.
We take the privilege of caring for our boarders very seriously and understand the responsibility that being in loco parentis brings. On a personal note, my husband and I have a long-established tradition of hosting our boarders for dinner at our home in their year groups. These are such fun nights; hubby cooks the main meal, I do dessert and we all share a lovely evening around the table hearing all the local gossip and enjoying a few laughs with our girls.
The opportunities for our girls are endless
We are proudly a big school. Our resources are second to none, allowing us to offer an equally big range of opportunities for your daughter to try, and the surrounding support structure to maintain small classes and a close focus on your daughter’s academic and co-curricular progress.
We offer an incredible 33 sports and are the first Independent School in the country to be designated as an Australian Olympic Pathway school. Just quietly, we are also about to announce a BIG partnership with a European Football Club!
Of course, it’s not all about sport. If Performing Arts are more your daughter’s thing, we have a highly successful Dance program offering more than 100 Dance classes per week, an outstanding Music program that includes a music tour of Spain and Portugal, an extensive Language Arts program and so much more.
Did I mention our world leading Robotics program, with nationally and internationally recognised teams? Our Centre of Excellence also offers a wide range of academic co-curricular opportunities, including the Da Vinci Decathlon, where our girls compete with great gusto and achieve incredible results.
Watch us Change the World is our vision for your daughter’s future
Watch us Change the World is our Strategic Direction for teaching and learning and reflects our belief that setting students up for life requires much more than an ATAR. Our vision is for Pymble girls to flourish as individuals with unique gifts and talents, as learners with different passions and pathways, and as compassionate and influential young women who have the hearts and minds to make the world a better place. Our four areas of focus include:
Academic Intelligence – we inspire students to explore what matters to them and to see themselves in futures they may not have imagined by continually adding new innovations to the curriculum, such as:
- Becoming a Cambridge school in 2025, which will allow us to offer International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) courses in addition to NESA curriculum courses.
- Being the first school in the Southern Hemisphere to partner with UCLA in 2021 to offer Data Science as a course for students in Years 9 to 12.
- Offering BioTechnology in partnership with the Centre of Curriculum Redesign.
- Launching a STEM Festival in the Junior School.
- Offering Recreational Pilot’s Licence as an elective.
Emotional Intelligence – we nurture courageous, resilient and determined learners who approach new challenges (such as the Year 9 Residential Program!) with a sense of optimism and excitement.
- In 2025 we are excited to take a fresh new approach to keeping our girls safe and supported in their teenage years by providing students in Years 4-8 with a Pymble Wise Phone that is managed by the College and does not allow access to social media apps.
Social Intelligence – we foster collaborative environments where different perspectives, faiths, beliefs, cultures and identities are encouraged and valued.
Digital Intelligence – we are responsible and engaged global citizens who use the power of technology for good purposes.
Our values mean the world to our Pymble family
An important note about our Strategic Direction — indeed, life at Pymble — is that everything revolves around our College values of Care, Courage, Integrity, Respect and Responsibility. Just as your family has defined values and expectations for behaviour, we have consulted widely with our family of students, staff and parents to create a set of statements to clarify what our values mean to us, and how we expect to see them in action everyday within our community.
- Care: I am kind to myself and others.
- Courage: I am open to new experiences to learn and grow.
- Integrity: I do the right thing even when no one is watching.
- Respect: I value diversity, my worth and the worth of others.
- Responsibility: I take ownership of my actions.
We will be homing in on the value of Respect in 2025 — respect for self, and respect for others — to ensure everyone in our Pymble family continues to be seen, heard and valued for who they are.
Our community finds joy and gratitude through being of service
Part of being a values-based community is our ongoing commitment to being of service to others, and this extends way back into our history as a school of the Uniting Church in Australia. Our students proudly support a host of local and international charities, schools and organisations in an intentional program of practical, hands-on, and age-appropriate activities throughout their years at the College. Our wider, adult community has a big, warm and open heart that has extended to funding several refugee students from war-torn countries, and a highly successful First Nations Program now in its 17th year.
More recently, we have been working on a Service Framework to offer all students, staff and families the opportunity to work in partnership with local and global communities in need, especially in the areas of girls’ education and women’s health. Research shows so many benefits that stem from the joy of helping others, and we are genuinely excited by the prospect of a community-wide approach to creating lasting, positive change in the lives of others who need a helping hand.
If I had a school-aged daughter, I would be proud to send her to Pymble
As the mother of five adult children, I know what a big decision this is for you. I was fortunate to attend an amazing school like Pymble and I know what a profound impact school can have on your life. My experience certainly has shaped my career path and guided my leadership in schools all over Australia, and now at this incredible College. Yes, we have brilliant academic staff who consistently guide and challenge our students to gain outstanding academic results. Yes, we continue to launch incredibly successful programs, such as our Mind-Body-Spirit Wellbeing Curriculum and the UCLA Data Science Course. And yes, we have a stunning main campus, a fabulous outdoor education campus at Vision Valley, and world-class facilities that will support all your daughter’s passions, from the Arts to Dancing, Robotics, AFL, Rugby, Swimming, Gymnastics, Music, Performing Arts, Fencing or Filmmaking. “Yes” is a word you hear often here.
The truth is, you’ll find lots of independent schools have amazing facilities and outstanding teachers, as we do. The real clincher for me is our values-based community and our collective vision to raise compassionate and influential girls and young women who have the courage and wisdom to use their education to make the world a better place for all. If you share our vision, please drop by. We’d love to meet you.
