From the Archives

The Jubilarians

WERE YOU A SCHOOL JUBILARIAN? DO YOU REMEMBER SEEING GIRLS IN FLOWER CROWNS AT LN?

Each year, our School hosts a special function to celebrate our ‘golden jubilarians,’ alumnae who graduated 50 years prior. An earlier practice of honouring ‘jubilarians’ recognised graduates who had commenced and finished their secondary education with Loreto Normanhurst.

The tradition was introduced as early as 1917. In that year, two pupils – Dorrie Burke and Dorothea Coffee – were recognised as jubilarians by our early records. At the time of their departure from Loreto Normanhurst, Dorrie and Dorothea had attended the School for eight and five consecutive years, respectively.

As the practice entered the 1920s, special evenings were organised for jubilarians at the end of the year. On these occasions, close family members and friends were invited to join the jubilarians as they enjoyed a dinner together with the Loreto Sisters and entertainment put on by their classmates. In this era, there were generally one to four pupils in each Leaving Class who merited the special title.

The requisite number of years for jubilarian status changed over time. Many alumnae recall seven years of consecutive enrolment as the magic number during their own time at Loreto. However, as we’ve seen, the earliest jubilarians were recognised for just five years of enrolment. Some girls were acknowledged if their schooling had been shared between Loreto Normanhurst and Kirribilli. The evolving cohort structures – from ‘Divisions’ to ‘Forms’ and then to ‘Years’ – and the differing ages for leaving school may have had some influence upon these changes. How the occasion was celebrated also evolved over time. Sometimes marked on a distinct ‘Jubilee Day’ or as part of ‘Loreto Day’, jubilarians were typically adorned with a beautiful crown of flowers. Some girls seem to have received a special gift from the Sisters (typically a Loreto Manual), and the festivities often involved a concert or cake to honour the lucky few. Other years, photographs of jubilarians show them wearing the Children of Mary cloaks with their crowns.

Although jubilarian numbers increased within cohorts, by the 1980s this celebration was no longer practised.

With the re-opening of the Teresa Ball Primary Centre in 2015, many students from the Class of 2021 would have attended Loreto Normanhurst for seven years. Although there were no flower crowns to be seen, there was plenty a flower petal released during one of our newer traditions, known by Normo girls as the Dove Ceremony.

MS RACHEL VAUGHAN

RECORDS MANAGER

This story first appeared on our Normo Network online community hub. If you are an alumna or former parent, we invite you to visit the Normo Network for more news stories and features from our Archives.

Flashback Friday

We’re lucky at Loreto Normanhurst to have a treasure trove of archival material at our fingertips. From photos of our earliest students to fun facts from generations past (did you know that the first LN student publication was called Stuff and Nonsense?), we were thrilled to share some of these gems with our community via social media throughout the year. Enjoy this sample of #FlashbackFriday posts!

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loretonh To end the week that began with International Women’s Day and our Women of Influence Evening at LN, we celebrated the women who have had an incredible influence on our community as leaders and members of the IBVM. These include Sr Libby Rogerson (‘61), who has held positions on IBVM General Council, at Mary Ward International and more, and is heavily involved in social justice work; Sr Deirdre Rofe who began her term as a muchloved principal at only 27 and later served as Australian Provincial; and Sr Diaan Stuart, who was appointed as LN Principal in 1981 and was a founding member of Loreto Mission in Timor Leste.

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loretonh When Ash Barty and Dylan Alcott made history this year at Wimbledon, on #FlashbackFriday we celebrated the tennis champions of our own history books. Our tennis courts were built soon after our foundation, around the 1900s or 1910s. Our first photographic glimpse of an LN tennis player comes from 1916, during WWI. Do any of our community members remember a tennis or sporting highlight from their time at LN?

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loretonh We have a long tradition of student leadership at Loreto Normanhurst. In fact, when we announced our incoming School Captain and Vice Captain for 2021-2022 earlier this year, we also marked a 100 years of School Captains at LN! Our first ever Head Girl was Mary Campbell, in 1921. In some of these photos you will notice the School Captain’s cross.

loretonh We’re lucky to have had incredible teachers through time at LN, whose collective impact extends beyond the classroom and continues long after Normo girls leave our school. Our first teachers were the Loreto Sisters, who taught all aspects of the curricula themselves. By the 1920’s, the Sisters welcomed ‘Visiting Masters’ to teach more specialised subjects for a term or for one-off guest lectures. Do you remember a teacher who had an influence on you?

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loretonh This year we experienced a period of remote learning which was full of FACE Online, Zoom classes, virtual assemblies, midday prayer videos, our online Health and Wellbeing Program and more. We’re grateful for the technology that allowed us to stay connected and continue from home with our holistic education model. We thought you’d enjoy seeing what technology looked like at LN in years gone by! Alumnae, can you remember what you used computers and AV equipment for at school?

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loretonh What do you remember about horse riding at LN? The first records of equestrian sport at LN appear in the 1930’s, when horse riding was introduced as an elective class. Each year, a visiting teacher would be arranged to teach a small group of students how to ride. To this day, many of our students shine at equestrian events.

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loretonh Did you have a favourite study spot on campus? Where did you sit your exams? Our library and study spaces are always full of focus and collaboration, whether for Year 10 SPRINT Week, Write a Book in a Day or recently, HSC exam study. Our Class of 1967 were the first to sit for the HSC, with previous graduates completing the Leaving Certificate. There have also been a few changes to the library since then!

We invite you to follow us on social media to interact with this content and more. We welcome community submissions of photos, stories, memories or other donations to our Archives. Feel free to leave a comment on our social media, share a photo or piece of news on the Normo Network, or get in touch with our Archivist at

archives@loretonh.nsw.edu.au.

LORETO LIFE 2021