News

Pymble Ladies’ College Middle School students participated in a special webcast hosted by television personality, Jennifer Byrne to launch the 2012 Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Readathon. 

The MS Readathon has been conducted for 33 years and this was the first year that the program was launched by webcast. Students were encouraged to register on line and seek sponsors for books they read during August.  

Twenty Years 7 and 8 Pymble students participated in the webcast which featured MS ambassador Stephen Papadopolous, who has previously addressed students at Pymble about his experience with MS. The students also had the opportunity to post comments during the webcast.

The webcast was filmed at Sydney Grammar Preparatory School, Edgecliff and more than 90 schools from New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory linked up for the launch. MS affects over 22,000 Australians and more than 2,500,000 people around the world, and is most common in young adults.

Congratulations to Year 11 students Jane Liu and Theresa Yu who gained second and third places respectively in the Open Age Piano Concerto at the 2012 Sydney Eisteddfod. They performed against a field of 32 competitors, many of whom were tertiary students. This is an outstanding achievement among such strong competition.

Boyoung Jeong (Year 9) and Reena Oh (Year 8) both competed in the 18 Year/Under Acoustic String Instrument and 16 Year/Under Viola or Cello sections and were awarded second place and highly commended respectively in both sections. Congratulations to these two very fine young cellists.

Since beginning in 1933, the Sydney Eisteddfod has provided young performers an arena to showcase their talents in a variety of different disciples for almost 80 years. Widely regarded as the largest and most successful competitive festival of its type in the world, the Sydney Eisteddfod attracts around 30,000 participants annually from all over Australia, New Zealand and beyond with a program that includes almost 400 classical and contemporary events for singers, dancers, musicians and actors, dance groups, bands, choirs and orchestras.

Congratulations to Year 12 Latin students Ellen Dobrijevic, Matilda Howard and Joy Jin who have won university scholarships for the study of a classical language from the American Classical League. There are only 21 such scholarships awarded internationally each year, and it is amazing that three of these should go to one school, and a non-American school too! The Head of Classical Languages, Dr Emily Matters, was at the ACL conference in Las Vegas when the winners were announced, and reported “It was wonderful to hear the girls’ names, followed each time by “Pymble Ladies’ College, Sydney, Australia”, ringing out in the crowded hall!”

Pymble student Hannah Mugford was awarded a silver medal in the International Biology Olympiad held in Singapore in the last week of the school holidays.

Hannah was just one of four students to represent Australia at the Olympiad and competed against 234 of the world’s best biology students. The Biology Olympiad required students to complete theory and practical tasks in the areas of cell and molecular biology; microbiology and biochemistry; plant diversity, anatomy and physiology; and animal anatomy and ecology.

Zohara Mendis of Year 7 competed in the state finals of the Rostrum Public Speaking Competition on Saturday 23 June. Zohara was the youngest competitor among twelve other state finalists from across Sydney. Her prepared speech was based on the topic ‘Out of Control’ and she spoke about the importance of individuals who defy societal expectations and achieve greatness through innovation and radical thinking. She also delivered a very perceptive impromptu topic on the challenges that people face in life, using the seesaw as a metaphor to highlight the ever-changing nature of human experience. Although Zohara narrowly missed out on a position in the national finals, she was awarded a special medallion for her outstanding achievement.