Where are they now?

Teachers edition

Rhonda Purvis 

I commended in 1983 under Miss Buckham in the Senior School and Miss Ramsay in the Junior School. I was in the Junior School until 1996 teaching Year 5 for many years then teaching Year 6. During that time Mrs Moore came to the College as Principal. 

In 1996 my husband decided we should buy a coffee shop which we did in St Ives. This meant I had to leave and work there. However, I missed the class room so asked if I could do casual teaching and also work the afternoons at the coffee restaurant. This I did until my husband passed away with Pancreatic Cancer in 2001. 

Mrs Moore and Miss Ramsay asked if I would consider returning full time to Year 7 in 2002 to be the liaison teacher for the students transitioning to the Middle School. I of course was thrilled.  

Since being back from 2002 we have had 2 new Heads- Mrs Waters and now Dr Hadwen. My role has varied greatly over the years from teaching History to years 7 through 10, Geography to Year 7, Music to Years 1, 2 and 7 and Financial Literacy to Year 8. I also take Covers when teachers are absent or attending PD. 

I occasionally drive the school buses- 16 and 23 seaters, sign forms as a JP and play the piano in Chapel if needed. 

There have been many changes- beautiful buildings, grounds, tennis courts, car parks, state of the art Early Learning Centre and Dance Studios and increased positions of leadership. The number of students who now attend is much more. 

I love my job and the people who work here. 

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Narelle Moylan 

This year marks my 60th year of teaching. 

I started teaching in 1967 the first year of the HSC and I am still teaching full time.  

 I have been teaching at Pymble since 1982, my 43rd year of teaching at this amazing school.  

What a ride my career has been. I have loved every moment of it. I have enjoyed every class I have ever taught, and I have the most wonderful memories of the beautiful, unique, driven, challenging, knowledge seeking, interesting girls I have met along the way. I am now teaching the daughters of students that I have previously taught, but I don’t think I’ll be around for the next generation.  There will come a time when I must ‘pull up stumps’ and say time to find a new life. Resting and sitting around is not part of my mantra, and I am not sure what I will do, but I am always thinking of new ideas, and I may find a space to put them into place one day.  

I keep teaching because it is a love, a challenge, it encourages me to keep learning, and it fulfills a large part of my life. Teaching for me has been a well-chosen career, when there were not many choices for women when I left school in 1962 

 I have travelled widely; Geography and Economics were both majors in my degree.  

My Geography teacher in my final years instilled a passion in me for understanding the landscape (today we call it the environment) its formation, its characteristics, culture, food, and   demographics. My 21st birthday present was a trip for 6 weeks on a small liner, where I travelled by myself to four Asian countries.  

Since my 2 boys, now 50and 51, have married and left home, I have continued to travel, not yet having had the time to count the many countries that I have visited, but there are many. In more recent years I have been using my long accumulated Long Service Leave to complete one big trip each year, to countries   including India, Egypt, most of the countries in the Baltic States and Europe, South Africa, Morocco and in South America, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and  Argentina as well as  Canada Alaska and North America. I have no desire to go to Antarctica as I am not at all fond of the cold.  

Life has been good to me I have remained very well with a few little hiccups along the way which I have been able to navigate with relative ease. I love seeing my past students, often in foreign countries or airports, talking to them and discovering what they have been achieving in their lives.  

 I have seen huge changes at Pymble, the school has grown in terms of student numbers, staff numbers, the size and number of buildings, the subjects taught the co-curricular activities and some of the biggest changes revolving around technology. In 1990 we were not using computers, in fact I remember borrowing $3000 from my father in the early 1990s to buy my first computer.  It was mainly used for word documents, and the Internet was just being developed for general use. Students today still cannot believe that I grew up without a phone. We didn’t have a phone in our house, and we certainly didn’t have mobile phones; we didn’t get television until I was in my last year at high school and so all of these influences today with technology, through phones, emails, social media and television have had a huge impact on students thinking and actions. 

I have been arriving at school early in recent weeks and walking about 4 kilometres around the school. I have always walked early in the morning, but the last few weeks decided to do it at school rather than on the road up in the hills near where I live. There is so much activity at school taking place at dawn, around 6.45 am, on all sporting fields. It is amazing to see the girls out and about and enjoying their sport. Students of all ages are being dropped off to be involved in many activities, which were not available in the early 1990s. 

I now have 2 beautiful granddaughters Rhiannon,14 and Sian 8, whom I enjoy spending time within the school holidays.  

I have had fun, travelled far, met challenges, have a wide circle of lovely friends, enjoy a good social life and hope to continue enjoying life for many more years.  

As ex-students thank you for being part of my life.