From the Archives
In the same vein with which Katrina is off travelling the globe, I thought we might ‘travel’ around our beautiful College and explore a few of its events and spaces and share a few bits and pieces with you.
Anzac Day Event
The College celebrated Anzac Day with a merging of history and tradition, with students past and present.
We welcomed back to the College past students Beth Kannegieter (Tierney, 1950), her daughter Cathy Lisle (Kannegieter, 1976) and granddaughter Anna Lisle-Turner (Lisle, 2005) who attended the service. Their family also has four generations at Pymble with Cathy’s great-granddaughter Harriet currently Boarding.
Also joining us were more Alumni – Jean Poole-Williamson (Newling, 1940) and her daughter Linda Milne (Poole, 1973). Jean, who joined the WAAF during World War II, celebrated her 102nd birthday earlier this year. Their family has four generations following in her footsteps at Pymble.
More events
We hosted the first-ever Autumn Family Festival in May, the annual Boarders breakfast, and our annual First Nations Scholarship program morning tea. This is a program supported by Alumni and donors who enable the program to continue. The College is grateful to the Alumni who contribute to this program and so much more.
Campus changes
For many of you, the Lower Colonnade may have been home to the gym of the College where many a limb was stretched and trained. The space fulfilled its duty as a gym for a significant part of the College’s history, but in 2024, it began a new life as the Common Room for Upper School (Years 9 and 10). I include a ‘now’ and ‘then’ comparison here as a reflection of how the College continues to change and evolve over time to meet the needs of its students.
And our jewel building, the Colonnade, was one of the first buildings here onsite when we opened in 1916 and housed classrooms for much of its life. Today, it has been sympathetically restored to house the Principal and Senior Executive Team and other key College functions. (The original drawings for the building were hand-drawn in 1914).
And in the future, more of our masterplan rolls out with the opening of our newest building on campus currently known as the Grey House Precinct, due to open in 2026. It will house dance studios, an early years school, health care and more.
The College continues to evolve
Each of these disparate elements listed here have the commonality of being varied parts of Pymble. We continue to add more elements to our evolving story, which will in all, in turn become part of our history.
