P&C News

Languages Faculty Sister Schools and Languages at Fort Street
At the last P&C meeting we were treated to a presentation from Ken Gillespie and Mark Backhouse about the activities within the Languages Faculty. Ken explained the long relationship Fort Street has with teaching Japanese (beginning prior to WWII) and continuing since, as well as with our sister school in Japan. This relationship began when Neville Wran was contacted by the Japanese school and approached his alma mater Fort Street to be their sister school. Now every second year our students go to Japan and stay with a family and attend the school and the alternate year the students from Japan do the same here. The 2018 Japanese students will be arriving on Friday 10th August and staying for the week with a Goodbye BBQ being held at school on Friday 17th  August.

Mark Backhouse, Head Teacher, Languages, introduced us to the variety of languages taught at Fort Street; the review of the faculty last year, one finding being that learning languages was felt to help students develop a deeper knowledge of grammar and language structures; the opportunities being explored for more relationships with schools in relevant countries and some changes to the curriculum that will be introduced next year. These include differentiated curriculum (already occurring at Fort St) and more immersion learning. Thank you to Ken and Mark for the great presentation.

Next Meeting will be on Wednesday 12 September in the Library at 6.30pm
The school counsellors will be attending to present about mental health and young people and how school counsellors and parents can support their children.
All parents are welcome to attend the Focus Item and/or the General meeting which follows at 7.30pm. We hope to see you there.

Amanda Elliott-Brennan
P&C President