Principal’s Report

Dear Parents, Carers and Fortians,

Congratulations to all our Fortians who have completed their seventh week of learning from home. We understand how exhausting lock down is and how difficult it is to stay focussed and on top of studies from home. I am very pleased to report that the majority of our students have attended every single day and are keeping up to date with all of their learning. We have a long way to go, so please, take care of yourselves and make sure you get outside every day. More students are participating each week in Ms Ezekiel’s weekly sporting challenges which is encouraging.

SRC leadership week
Over 180 student leaders from around NSW tuned in to Fort Street’s Leadership week hosted by the executive members (Year 11) of the FSHS Student Representative Council Executive last week. I am so proud of what these students have achieved, the interviews were candid and covered a lot of fascinating ground. If you are interested in catching up you can still watch the interviews by following the links below:

1. Event introduction and welcome by Ms McMurray (Principal, Fort Street High School)
https://youtu.be/FrMXw_CQT20

2. A heart to heart conversation with the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG covering all things from North Korea to his experiences as the 40th judge appointed to the High Court of Australia, and the first openly gay member of the court.
https://youtu.be/uAV9ljgSnOI

3. An interview with Natalie Lang (Branch Secretary of the Australian Services Union NSW and ACT) in which she discusses the vital role essential workers have played in our communities during the pandemic, unionism, feminism, challenges she has faced in her career to have her voice heard and advice for young advocates.
https://youtu.be/7VuXfrFNbhg

4. Interview with Erin O’Leary (young activist and co-founder of Youth Against Sexual Violence) who speaks about how she became involved in activism and her advice for other young people wanting to make a difference.

5. Interview with the Hon. Tanya Plibersek MP (former Deputy Leader of the Labor Party) in which she shares her experiences as a first generation immigrant, the barriers she faced as a woman in politics and the role she sees young people playing in determining the future of our nation.
https://youtu.be/dqRSJFEW2Ow

6. A conversation with Chris Gambian (CEO Nature Conservation Council NSW) in which he provides advice for young people looking to advocate for change and his thoughts around the impact he believes generation Z will have on the world.
https://youtu.be/T42URaoAfdk

Wellbeing Day
On Monday 16 August students and teachers took a break from lessons to participate in wellbeing day. It was an absolute delight to see evidence of our students participating in all types of creative and physical challenges as well as random acts of kindness. A staff member sent screen shots of a post she had seen on the Summer Hill Community Facebook page from a local resident who had received a beautiful note and flowers from a stranger. A year 7 Fortian had secretly delivered at least six of these surprise gifts to various people in Summer Hill.
Prizes for our winning individual entrants and group participants will be announced in Week 8.

Extra-curricular activities
Debating commenced again on Monday 16 August and will continue to operate remotely for the remainder of 2021. Drama club will also commence remotely this week, contact Ms Mattick for further details.

Preparing for a safe return to school
On Friday 27 August the NSW Premier announced that schools in Greater Sydney will return to face-to-face learning through a staged return, depending on NSW Health conditions in their area. Now we have a better indication of how long learning from home will continue, except for Year 12, students will not come back to school this term or for the first half of Term 4.
From Monday 25 October (Week 4, Term 4), Year 12 students will have full-time access to school and their teachers. What this will actually look like at this stage we have not yet figured out. HSC exams will be delayed until Tuesday 9 November (Week 6, Term 4) with a revised timetable and guidelines for a COVID-safe HSC to be released by NESA in early September.
From Monday 1 November (Week 5, Term 4), Year 11 students will return to school under Level 3 plus settings. From Monday 8 November (Week 6, Term 4), students in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 will also return to school under Level 3 plus settings.
What will level 3 plus settings look like?
– Double dose COVID vaccinations will be mandatory for all school staff
– Masks will be required for all students and staff indoors and outdoors
– There will be no mixing among student cohorts (no assemblies and separate playground areas for each year group)
– There will be no on-site activities such as sport, IMP, SRE and ethics, debating, school performances and excursions.
– Parents and carers will not be allowed on school site, P&C meetings will continue to be held over zoom.

COVID-19 Vaccinations

Children and family members are eligible for a vaccine if they are 16 or above regardless of where they live from 30 August 2021.

Students with underlying medical conditions are currently eligible to receive a Pfizer vaccine at NSW clinics across the state.

Children 12 to 15 years will be eligible to receive the vaccination from 13 September 2021
General practices are currently experiencing a high number of phone calls from people interested in receiving the vaccine. Please use online bookings where possible, and refrain from calling your GP until bookings open for these age groups.
Eligible students are strongly encouraged to have received 2 doses of vaccine before returning to face to face learning.

Proposed Executive Restructure
For the past two weeks the school executive has been discussing a proposal to restructure the current configuration of Head Teachers in the school. Head Teachers are allocated to High Schools on the basis of the number of classroom teachers (approx. one Head Teacher per 6 classroom teachers). Head Teacher positions are made up of both curriculum Head Teachers and non-curriculum Head Teachers.
Fort Street has an allocation of 10 Head Teachers including 8 curriculum HT’s – English, Maths, Science, History, Social Science, Languages, Technology and the Creative and Performing Arts and two non-curriculum HT’s – Wellbeing and Administration. The school has also been funding an additional HT Position for at least four years – Teaching and Learning and PDHPE.
Most selective High Schools in NSW have a standalone HT Teaching and Learning who is not responsible for a particular faculty area but instead focuses on developing strategies for implementation of pedagogical goals across the school, providing support and scaffold for faculties through a collaborative process. The senior executive is proposing that the T&L and PDHPE/Sport position be split. As it would be unsustainable for the school to fund a 12th HT position this would require two faculty areas merging under one HT position.
There are many possibilities for this which are currently being discussed by the executive and teaching staff at the school. History, Languages and PDHPE are all small faculty areas so there is scope for two of these faculties to merge together. I will be discussing this in much greater detail at the next P&C meeting so if you are interested in attending to find out more or to have your opinion heard please come along to the meeting which will be held via zoom Wednesday 8 September.