Principal’s Report

Dear Fortians, Parents, Carers,

Welcome back students, staff and parents to Term 3, 2019. I hope that everyone is feeling refreshed and prepared for yet another busy term. Term 3 is an especially important term in particular for our senior students as Year 11 students finish their last term of the senior preliminary courses before commencing Year 12 courses in Term 4. Year 12 have been preparing for and have now commenced their Trial HSC exams and are on the home stretch before HSC exams take place next term. Language students are in fact preparing for their HSC speaking exams which will commence this weekend. Good luck to all our language students with these HSC speaking exams.

It is also subject selection time for Years 8 and 10. It is important that Year 8 students keep in mind that electives in Years 9 and 10 are not pre-requisites for any courses in Years 11 and 12 and that this is perhaps their last opportunity to experiment with something completely different before choosing their HSC subjects. Students are strongly encouraged to make selections based on what they enjoy and what they are good at. This message also applies to Year 10 students making their selections for Years 11 and 12. Whilst we will endeavour to create a curriculum pattern that meets the needs of most of our students we are limited by staffing and a maximum number of courses that can be offered at one time. We cannot guarantee that classes will run for all courses offered, this will depend on student demand.

Term 3 commenced for staff on Monday 22ndJuly with a Professional Learning day focused on effective feedback. Staff shared best practice strategies for peer and self-assessment as well as strategies for effective written feedback. All staff continued with this work in their faculty teams at our trade-off Professional Learning session on Thursday 1stAugust from 3.30pm to 6.30pm.

On Monday 29thJuly Fort Street welcomed 22 students visiting from China. These students have been experiencing school life in Australia with us and they will continue to attend school each day until Friday 9thAugust. It has been a wonderful experience for our Chinese language students to further develop their skills and also to spend each day comparing school and everyday life experiences between Australia and China.

IMP Congratulations

Recently our junior groups (Concert Band, Training Band and Big Band) performed at the Australian Band and Orchestra Festival, each band were awarded gold. At the recent Eisteddfod our Chamber Choir was the Winner of both their section and the Australasian Choral Championship. The Jazz Ensemble was also a Winner with the Philharmonic Orchestra placed Second and the Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Orchestra both placed Third. The Senior Percussion, Wind Ensemble and Wind Orchestra were all Highly Commended.

Regular extra-curricular Sport open to all:
Stretching Classes – Wednesdays 8.00 – 8.30am (School Gym)
Thursday Lunchtime (School Gym)
Volleyball Club – Wednesdays Lunchtime (School Gym)
Table Tennis Club – Wednesdays Lunchtime (School Gym) BYO bats and balls
Thursday Lunchtime (School Gym)
Futsal Club – Friday 8.00 – 8.30am (tennis courts)
Running Club – Friday 8.00 – 8.30am (oval)

Staff Member of the Week
At the end of term the Staff Trophy was awarded to Sarah Wilkinson (Technology Teacher) who passed on the trophy this term to Craig McGeachie our amazing IT support staff member. Last week the trophy was handed on to Paul Pagani in Social Science. Congratulations to all these staff members for their hard work and dedication to the Fort.