The youngest, Ragavi Jeyakumar is the current head prefect, Kylie Alcorn an ex-day girl and Judy Lewis, an old girl from 1945.

Each share their memories of a school that has educated young women in Armidale for the last 130 years.

“We had it a lot tougher in my day,” Ms Lewis said.

“It was war years, so we had to do a lot of waiting on tables in the dining room, washing up, peeling potatoes – we had to get up at half-past six every morning to do exercise, in the winter too.”

In her time, New England Girls’ School didn’t take day girls, and a lot of young ladies were sent up from Sydney to PLC during WWII.

Schools were desperately in need of more teachers, but Ms Lewis said the ones that were around did their best.

“I didn’t mind it, I thought it was rather good, and I liked going to an all-girls school, I wasn’t fussed with boys.”

The end of the war is a day she remembers at school, VP Day, when the young boys from The Armidale School sped down the street on push bikes – rolls of loo paper in their hands flapping in the wind.

“I don’t think there was any toilet paper left at TAS by the time they’d ridden past with yards of toilet paper behind them!” she said.

Years later, Kylie Acorn enrolled, a day girl who remembers her time at school fondly.

“It really was the making of me, I remember my mother commenting once that she loved my best friend because she pushed me to be my best,” she said.

“That peer group encouragement and competition pushed me to something I don’t think I would have achieved otherwise to be honest.

“I always felt completely comfortable, relaxed and able to focus on what I wanted to learn.”

Founded in 1887, and taken over by the Tindall sisters Eliza Jane and Mary Murray in 1984, the initial school motto was Lux Per Studia, meaning Enlightenment Through Study.

It was later changed by principal Alethea Tendall to Ad Astra, meaning, To the Stars.

The school has moved through six different locations, and spent 53 years on the current site, where head prefect Ragavi Jeyakumar attends.

A day girl, Ragavi said PLC is like a family to her, and as with most families, she’s happy to be able to go home to her real one on the weekends.

“It helps make it a homely environment, the fact that some people are here all the time,” she said.

“This year we’ve been talking about the history of the boarding school, why the boarding houses are named what they are, why our guilds exist – old principals and how the school was founded.

“It was founded initially as a really small school by a mother for her daughters, it’s really amazing to see how big it’s become.”