It is difficult to conceive of a year in which there has been more dramatic change than 2020. A pandemic, lockdowns, isolation, class teaching suspended, working and learning from home the new norm; the change was abrupt and confronting.

St Scholastica’s College, its teachers and students met the challenge with resilience, adaptation, determination and innovation. Change, especially dramatic change, demands leadership and our girls and young women, challenged as they were to maintain the momentum of the school year, did that in style.They did not resent change; it was an opportunity. Our girls dispensed with the threat to their schooldays, adapted, grasped the technology and refused to let the strictures of a pandemic threaten a year of learning.

Many ‘Schols’ girls will emerge from their year of pandemic schooling with an appreciation that change in 2020, however unexpected, presented opportunities to grasp leadership and to build personal resilience in hard times.