From the Principal's Desk

Unfortunately, yesterday the School made the difficult decision to postpone the Christmas Fair due to the forecasted rain event from Thursday to Sunday. 

With the safety of our community in mind, Planet Entertainment advised it will be unsafe to proceed with the rides, which is a significant part of the day for our families.

We understand this is disappointing, as many of you have worked so hard to organise the Fair to this point, volunteered your valuable time, become sponsors or purchased ride passes and/or raffle tickets. 

Further information will be communicated to those involved later today, but if you have specific questions, please email: phpa@tphs.nsw.edu.au.

The good news is, we will have an Easter Fair instead! 

All purchased tickets for the rides and raffle will be rolled over to the new date, which has been set for Saturday 29 March 2025, so please add this to your diaries! If your family have purchased ride tickets but are unavailable on this date, please email: phpa@tphs.nsw.edu.au.

We appreciate your support and apologise for any inconvenience this change of date has caused, but the safety of our community remains our first priority.

This week we continue with the introductions of our Class of 2025 Student Leaders. I thank each leader for their engagement to date and know their plans for the new school year will ensure initiatives and a focus on the students of the Class of 2030 and beyond. As students move through their secondary years, they become increasingly observant of the protocols and opportunities for testing their own leadership attributes; examples of which are often shared at the time of the election process in the latter part of Year 11. Our leaders are watched keenly by younger students; the example they set each day is important in imbuing our Core HEROIC Values. 

Addison and Joe - House Captains Orrock

Hello, we are Joe and Addie, and we are so excited to be your Orrock House Captains this year! This year, the leadership team's main goal is to promote connection throughout the School, and for us, that means promoting connection through House spirit. We’re looking forward to creating opportunities for all of you to get involved, whether through the Swimming or Athletics Carnivals, Foundation Day or House Games, there's always going to be an opportunity to connect. We aim to optimise Inter-House connections by improving House Games and weaving House-related activities into your everyday school life. Within our House activities, we also plan to combine the College and Grammar to further improve the connections within the School. We can make this year memorable by working as a team and supporting each other in everything we do. If anyone has any questions, queries, or concerns, you can always feel free to approach us.

Harry and Ukiesha - House Captains Morgan

Hi everyone, our names are Harry and Ukiesha and we are the Morgan House Captains. We are extremely excited to be a part of the leadership team this year. Having spent the first 4 weeks of Term 4 in this position, we have had the opportunity to organise and run ‘House Games’, starting with a trivia competition against Orrock and Butterworth. Along with the other House captains, we completed this for Years 7, 8, 9 and 10, and had the opportunity to meet every single member of the Morgan House, and inversely, they have had an opportunity to meet us. This opening event was an incredible` way for us to foster a House-wide bond, which will be a key factor in us forming a rich culture of Morgan connection, one of our major goals for 2024 – 2025. We hope to make this year engaging and meaningful for both Morgan - College and Grammar. 

Phoebe - Performing Arts Prefect

Performing Arts has played a crucial role in my journey at Pittwater House from playing trumpet in the bands and guitar in contemporary ensembles to participating in College Performing Arts. This involvement has given me a creative outlet, lots of positive memories, and allowed me to build friendships across the School. I’ve learnt that practise enhances skills and builds resilience. I’m both incredibly grateful and excited for the opportunity to work alongside the Performing Arts staff and leadership team as we aim to further enrich the whole School community. My goals include fostering stronger connections between Junior and Senior Schools, between Grammar and College, and increasing recognition and celebration of students' achievements in music, dance, and drama. I believe the Performing Arts offers students a fun, safe, inclusive and supportive space in which to build confidence, self-expression and explore creativity and I am dedicated to ensuring everyone has the chance to thrive in our community.

Lachlan and Estella - Community Prefects

Over the 2024/2025 leadership year, we aspire to create a more connected and tightly knit Pittwater House community. This will entail multiple initiatives all focusing on College and Grammar cohesion by building bonds within cohorts and across both the Senior and Junior Schools. More specifically, we intend to work with the Head of the Junior School Mr Stephenson to build our ideas and strive to produce opportunities for students to create these connections by encouraging healthy action. Our time at Pittwater House has given us the drive to create these positive changes in order to benefit the younger students and create a community which is stronger than that of the past. We are very excited to be your Community Prefects for 2025 and look forward to the fantastic year ahead!

Emily and Viktoriya - HEROIC Prefects

We are Emily and Viktoriya, and we're thrilled to be the 2024/25 HEROIC Prefects! Our mission this year is to work closely with students, helping them unlock their fullest potential by fostering a healthy balance in academic, social, and personal life. By embodying the HEROIC values—Honesty, Excellence, Respect, Origins, Innovation, and Community—we aim to create a school environment where everyone feels valued and supported.

Throughout the year, we’re excited to introduce initiatives such as study tips, special awards, and programs that encourage healthy habits both in and outside the classroom. We believe that a network of support is essential to student success, and we’re dedicated to creating spaces where students can connect, share, and grow. By promoting a positive school culture, we want each student to feel motivated and inspired to reach their goals.

Our goal is to be there for our peers, responding to challenges and opportunities that arise, and guiding students as they strive for excellence. We’re excited to embark on this journey working together to create a vibrant, empowering school experience!

Harley and Zara - Sports Prefects

My name is Harley and I am the male Sport’s Prefect for the 2024-2025 year. My vision for this year is to ensure that sport continues to thrive at Pittwater House by providing students with the best opportunities to play and improve in their respective sports, but more importantly, to create a strong community where everyone has fun and feels supported.

Adding on from Harley, I’m Zara, the female Sports Prefect for 2024-2025. I want to also promote participation for sports in the Pittwater House community, where students feel safe and motivated to be their best. We just want to see as many students getting involved as possible. 

Running on the theme of connections, we want to see as many students as possible to go and support their peers at games. We plan to do this by regularly updating students about upcoming games at assembly.

Zara and I will be taking over the prestigious ‘give it a go’ award this year, which aims to recognize students for their sporting achievements in the Pittwater House Community, whether that be a student receiving elite accolades, or someone that is just getting outside their comfort zone and having a go. On top of ‘Give It a Go’, We are looking at implementing an occasional ‘sports wrap’ video which will show highlights of recent sporting achievements in our School Community. This will add another element of fun and innovation to our School Assembly, hopefully encouraging students to get more involved in sports.

We are looking forward to working with the Staff and students of Pittwater House in the coming year and we hope to add a valuable and lasting impact on our Community.

Tilman and Ella - Charity Prefects

We’re Ella and Tilman, your Charity Prefects for this year! Together, we're passionate about bringing our School together to make an impact on our greater community and to support meaningful causes. One of our favourite things about the School is how much everyone gets involved in charity events, especially the food and toy drive displayed under the Christmas tree. Our big initiative for this term is the School’s Christmas Charity. The Good Box is a group dedicated to providing gift boxes to homeless people at Christmas time. Boxes are sent out to homeless support groups around Australia and distributed to those in need. On Tuesday Week 7, we will have a Christmas Mufti Day, with a compulsory gold coin donation to raise money for this charity, however additional donations would be greatly appreciated to help support even more people in need. We will also be collecting toys for our annual Toy Drive, which involves distributing toys to children who may not otherwise receive many gifts. This year, we're aiming to fill the Hall Foyer with even more toys than last year, which entails everyone in the community contributing to this meaningful charity. We would like to remind everyone that during the Christmas season it's important to be grateful for what we have, as not everyone is so fortunate, and supporting those in need is a meaningful way to make a difference.

A key annual tradition, and the first significant opportunity for our Student Leaders to work in team, is our Christmas Tree Appeal. The decoration of the trees in both the Hall Foyer, and the Reception area is the start of the annual race to ensure through our student generosity, that Pittwater House students and families make the lives of those less fortunate, brighter. Thus, from the sight of the empty tree, over the coming weeks, the Foyer will build with gifts to support the local group Peninsula Toy Repairs who deliver toys to children across the country. This year through a mufti day, the collected funds will go toward the creation of 400 Christmas Hampers for the homeless across Sydney undertaken by The Good Box. In these challenging times, our support is needed even more.

Year 9 have returned from their camp, the final camp for 2024. Murramarang National Park is a beautiful part of the south coast and the students had a fabulous time exploring, surfing, snorkeling and more.

Year 9 College

Year 9 Grammar

Meanwhile, our new HSC students have a week of assessments, realising they are now one quarter through their final year! As always, these final weeks of the academic year fly by. There are still assessments to complete and challenges to meet. Around these are the celebrations that come with the end of another school year. 

Whilst these events are occurring, we have welcomed our Year 7, 2025 students to the Campus, first to complete a set of tests to ascertain their best placement next year, and for a day of transition activities. With an intake nearing 150 students in Year 7, our new College and Grammar students had fun with Food making their own mini pizza, creating their own AI characters in Computer Science, learnt about the wonders of the scientific world, and unleashed their inner artist in working with different media. It was a great way to get to know each other prior to the new school year.

Our Junior School students have a wonderful performing arts curriculum. At Assembly last Friday, Year 5 performed a unique piece showcasing some of their dance, drama and music skills. I am sure the parents appreciated this moment to reflect on some of the experiences their children have each day. 

The final piece of the refurbishment…. Silicon application that was held up due to the rain… and once applied, it needs a 7-day drying time before we can begin to fill the pool. It holds 968,750 litres of water therefore it will take 4 days to fill! We are inching ever closer to having our wonderful pool for all to enjoy.

And that special time of the year is upon us. Yes, the College Performing Arts festival is about to overtake the lives of all our girls in Years 5 and above. If you have not experienced this extravaganza, please mark your diaries for essential attendance on Friday, 6 December. It is a superb sight and sound showcasing the very best cooperation amongst all our girls. Led supremely by our current C10s and supported by our new members from the Class of 2025, the best expression of song, drama and dance comes to the fore. Meanwhile the boys will be having a series of BBQs with structured games and activities as well as a Grammar Dance Off.

I look forward to sharing these times with you.