From the Principal

It was with pure delight and pride that the College formally launched our Pymble Institute in October this year. Congratulations to our Director of Research and Development, Dr Sarah Loch, for her contribution to the development of our researchcentre and for the way she has engaged with all stakeholders – most importantly, our students – to establish a centre of true excellence.

The Pymble Institute has already significantly enhanced our community, with 15 staff actively engaged in their own research and 30 staff undertaking postgraduate studies to complement their skills and knowledge. Possibly two of the most exciting additions have been our College Ethics Committee, with a large number of students involved, whose lens on ethical research is impressive, and our Junior Journal Club (JJC). It’s fantastic to see our girls learning new concepts and looking forward to applying these in their own lives. One of my favourite comments came from a JJC member who wrote in the Microsoft Teams chat during a recent meeting, “It was great to learn about what should be included in an abstract since I had never heard of them before”. These students are our researchers of the future and watching them engage so fully in this space is providing them with exciting opportunities to change their world in meaningful ways.

Congratulations to our Pymble staff who have contributed to this edition of Illuminate. While our students are busy asking big questions, exploring solutions and challenging the status quo, our staff are engaged in translating their research into practice. Pymble continues to partner with leaders in the field of wellbeing to support best practice.

We thank our partners who generously give their time and continue to inform our practice.

As I write this, Sydney has emerged from a 107-day period of lockdown and Melbourne has been released from its sixth lockdown and a world-recordbreaking total of 262 days in lockdown since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Undoubtedly, this has been a very challenging time for many, a time of deep distress, increased family violence and financial stress – certainly a time most would not want to repeat. You only need to look at the constant media trail of all the challenges of lockdown that are presented in a neverending stream for our consumption to appreciate the impact of the pandemic – and yet most conversations I have had with colleagues and young people point to the benefits gained from this chapter of history. Family relationships were cemented and there was time to ride pushbikes, build cubby houses and go for walks in the afternoon.

As this is our second edition of Illuminate to focus on wellbeing, I wanted to offer a view that moves away from the body of knowledge that focusses on all the concerns regarding the wellbeing of our young people and move to a place of hope.

I’m a fan of former President Barack Obama’s take on hope:

“Hope is not blind optimism. It’s not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It’s not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be”.

There is a great deal of research on the importance of hope, which is defined by the Australian clinical psychologist, Andrew Fuller, as “the anticipation that good things will happen in the future and that we have the power to make some of those good things happen”. For me, the addition of the Pymble Institute to the College’s already outstanding offering provides a strong sense of hope for the future. Hope that our students will continue to ask big questions, hope that this research eases the pain that is present in the lives of so many, hope that research continues to enrich our educators and refine their skills, and hope that, in big and small increments, Pymble continues to change the world in positive and productive ways. Dr Kate Hadwen

B.ED, GRAD CERT ED LEADERSHIP, M.ED, PHD PRINCIPAL