Principal’s Report

Dear Fortians, Parents and Carers,

We find ourselves almost at the end of a very different term at Fort Street. Congratulations to our students for showing resilience and striving to achieve their best under difficult circumstances. Thank you to all our wonderful staff for their hard work and their dedication to our students.

In Term 4, Fortians will continue learning from home. Year 11 will hopefully return to school in week 5, Monday 1 November and years 7 – 10 will hopefully return to school in week 6, Monday 8 November. Whilst the last official day of school for Year 12 is this Friday 17 September we hope to welcome Year 12 on site in week 4, from 25 October. Further information regarding this will be sent to Year 12 students and their parents during the holiday period.

All eligible students are strongly encouraged to be vaccinated before returning to face-to-face learning.

Congratulations

The 2021 Minister’s and Secretary’s Awards for Excellence have recently been released. Congratulations to Alyssa Koit (Yr 12) and Jack Coleman (Yr 12) – due to COVID-19 the annual ceremony held at Town Hall in which these awards are usually presented was unable to take place. This does not diminish the quality or significance of these awards. Both Alyssa and Jack were recipients this year of the Minister’s Award for excellence in Student Achievement recognising that they have both excelled in their secondary years across academic excellence, sports, cultural and community leadership.

Year 7 HPV and Diphtheria Vaccinations

Year 7 are booked in for their second doses of HPV and Diphtheria vaccinations at Fort Street on 17th November. The nurses from NSW Health will be checking with every student at the time to ensure that they have not had either a first or second COVID-19 vaccine within one week prior to this date. Further information regarding this will be distributed to students and parents closer to the date.

Year 11

Year 11 students have almost completed their final assessments and will hopefully be able to enjoy a truly restful break these holidays before officially commencing Year 12 courses in term 4. I would like to sincerely thank the executive members of the SRC for their leadership throughout this year and in particular over this term. They have remained dedicated and enthusiastic adapting traditional and new events to the online environment – many thanks to Audrey Truong, Frankie Murphy, Barisha Tashnin, Ray Chen, Zhanhao Xu and Veronica Kwong.

HSC student advice

The HSC Exams have been delayed this year until Week 6 and will commence on Tuesday 9 November. We know our students and staff have worked hard for the HSC. The safety of our students and staff remains of utmost importance. This year extra arrangements are in place to ensure that any disruption due to COVID-19 will have minimal impact on HSC exams.

Our school will put in place a number of contingencies to help ensure exams run as smoothly as possible. Part of this planning includes spacing our students out as much as possible. To implement these guidelines, we will require additional examination spaces this year for many of our exams. For this reason, the hall, library and school gym will be closed to all students when students return to school for most of Term 4. Further information will be sent to all students and families next term.

Best wishes to everyone for a safe and restful break after Friday 17 September. Online lessons will resume for Years 7 – 11 on Monday 4 October.

Minister’s Awards for Excellence

Congratulations to Jack Coleman and Alyssa Koit for being awarded the Minister’s Award for Excellence in Student Achievement.

These awards are for Year 12 students who have excelled across academic achievement, sports, culture, community and leadership.  To read more about these two outstanding students please follow this link:

Minister’s Awards for Excellence

ANU early entry

A record number of our Year 12 students have recently received an early offer from the Australian National University, Canberra, branded “Australia’s most prestigious university” for undergraduate study commencing in 2022. 37 Fortians have been offered places in courses as diverse as Law, Engineering, Design, Advanced Computing, Criminology, Philosophy, Actuarial Studies and International Relations, as well as several double-degree options.

In March each year the university opens its applications for early-entry. The offers are based on students’ academic results in their Preliminary courses (Year 11 grades) as well as their involvement in at least three co-curricular or extra-curricular activities in years 11 and/or 12. Offers are made in August to successful applicants.

Fort Street always has an enviable record in receiving ANU early-offers, but our current cohort is the most successful ever. This is despite the fact that covid-constraints both last year and this year have made the extra-curricular component of the application very challenging to fulfil.

Congratulations to these outstanding Fortians for demonstrating their impressive all-round academic excellence and ongoing dedication to their extra-curricular commitments. We wish them every success in their university studies!

What’s been happening in Year 8 Visual Arts?

Year 8 Visual Arts students have been exploring the work of Pop artist Claes Oldenburg and have produced some amazing “sculptures”of their own using forced perspective and trick photography.

Year 10 Visual Arts

When I went to school to collect some materials here is what I found in my art room K21…

Penny Starr – Visual Arts

English Extension 2 Showcase Success

Congratulations to Jack Williams, who graduated from Fort Street in 2020 and whose outstanding HSC Major Work in English Extension 2 has been selected for inclusion in the 20th annual edition of the prestigious WordXpress Young Writer’s Showcase. Jack’s fictocritical piece ‘Perhaps a Lunatic’ is a highly experimental piece of creative non-fiction drawing on Orwell and Dante. Jack’s gift for writing was ably fostered and guided by his teacher Ms Claire Kendall as well as by feedback from other expert mentors within the English faculty, including Mr Noah Melser and Ms Catriona Arcamone.

Another 2020 Fortian, Eszter Coombs, a student of Mr Melser, was awarded first place in the course for her Major Work ‘The Ice Pick’. Her work does not appear in Showcase, having been published elsewhere.

Congratulations also to Mr James Wright, who (re)joined the English Faculty at the start of 2021 after a period teaching at Sydney Girls High School. Mr Wright’s student Rayanne Haidar also earned selection in Showcase 20 for her innovative Critical Essay ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Foucault’.

Only 18 students from the entire statewide candidature were selected for inclusion in Showcase this year, so the success of these students and teachers clearly demonstrates the extremely high calibre of teaching and learning in English at Fort Street High School.

More information about the Showcase students’ success is available here: https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/about/events/young-writers-showcase

Mindful Cooking

Year 10 have been undergoing Mindful Cooking. They were to cook something for themselves or someone else as a meditation relaxing exercise. Attached are some of the entries and student names. (Featured photo Georgia Bailey)

Year 7 Sport

Year 7 sport have been busy keeping active. They did a circuit all together so that they were able to exercise as a group rather than by themselves. The students loved it!!!

There has been plenty of activity from both staff and students this week.  Keep it up!

Ms Ezekiel

Guide to better sleep

For tips on better sleep please see the attached information sheet:

SSH Newsletter – Sleep

P&C News

Teachers are crucial to the growth and development of our society. However at the moment the profession is struggling with stagnant wages, increased administrative burdens and a restrictive casualised career structure. The NSW Teachers Federation has recently released the report of an inquiry into this situation headed by former WA Premier Geoff Gallop. Having discussed this report at our August P&C Meeting with two Fort Street teachers Jenny Xu and Kylie Salisbury, the P&C has resolved to send the attached letter to the relevant State and Federal politicians.

Mitchell Gallop Support FSHS P&C

We think this is an important issue, and encourage parents to make their own representations. If you would like to explore the matter further, please visit: https://www.nswtf.org.au/inquiry

Michael Easton
FSHS P&C President

SYO and AYO applications

Sydney Youth Orchestras 2022 applications now open!

Auditions for the SYO 2022 program are open!  Sydney Youth Orchestras is the leading orchestral training and education programs provider in New South Wales. It forges dynamic relationships between young musicians and Australia’s leading music educators, conductors, and performers. Since 1973 SYO has been the engine room of excellence and produced some of Australia’s finest musicians, educators and lovers of classical music.

Currently comprising 13 orchestras and ensembles, SYO provides a robust weekly orchestral training program for over 550 musicians aged 6 – 25 years. This is a comprehensive system that ensures musicians progress through the orchestras, developing individual and ensemble skills under the careful guidance of SYO’s artistic staff. In addition to equipping our members for careers as professional musicians, our program teaches teamwork, discipline, dedication, leadership, and a commitment and love of classical music.

Whatever career path these talented young people follow, they are likely to become leaders in and contributors to their community.

SYO is the place to be for a comprehensive classical music education.

Applications for SYO 2022 are now open – apply today to receive your excerpts!
https://syo.com.au/join/new-musicians/audition-form/

Australian Youth Orchestra

The Australian Youth Orchestra (AYO) holds a reputation for being one of the world’s most prestigious and innovative training organisations for young musicians. Our unique, specialised training pathway has been specifically created to nurture the musical development of the most gifted young instrumentalists to be found across metropolitan and regional Australia: from exceptional school-aged musicians, to emerging young practitioners, to those on the verge of a professional career. AYO presents tailored training and performance programs each year for aspiring musicians, composers, arts administrators and music journalists aged 12 to 30 to help them achieve their goals.

How should I choose a program?

Each of our programs caters to Australia’s finest young musicians at varying stages of their creative and professional development. Many participants start as young as twelve and follow the AYO training pathway from start to finish, while others select individual programs that complement their study schedule and stages of development. AYO offers the flexibility to pick and choose the programs that suit you best, and we encourage you to apply for all programs you are eligible and available for. Our programs are varied to suit your needs, and there is plenty to choose from, ranging from performance-based to non-instrumental programs.

Applications for AYO 2022 are now open – apply today to receive your excerpts!
https://ayo.force.com/AYOCommunity/s/login

For information on joining the Australia Youth Orchestra please see the attached flyer:

AYO Applications Flyer

University Upcoming events

UNSW

Food Science at UNSW –  a lunchtime webinar Friday 17 September, 12.30pm.

Register here

SciX2022

SciX@UNSW supports Science Extension students and other keen high school students to complete their research projects by providing them with access to UNSW Science’s world-leading researchers, research tools and facilities. Students are placed in small groups focused on a particular research area and technique. Each group’s UNSW Science mentors, current PhD students and practicing researchers, will introduce students to research and tools at the frontier of scientific knowledge, supporting students in developing their individual hypothesis and carrying out their independent research project.

The centrepiece of the SciX experience is a one-week intensive summer school. SciX2022 will take place on 17th – 21st January.

SciX2022 applications open 11 October.

For more information follow this link:   SciX2022

For other UNSW events follow the link : https://www.events.unsw.edu.au/events/list

Sydney University

To watch the recent open day or attend other events at Sydney University visit their events page:

Sydney University events

Library news

The holidays are coming up so I thought it would be timely to give you a reminder that you can still access ebooks through our school library. Here is the link to go straight to the platform https://fortstreet.wheelers.co/ and I’ve also made a short video to explain the process. If you have any questions, I’m just an email away!

Happy reading,
Ms Donna Page
Teacher Librarian

Happy retirement Kevin Wright

After many years of service as one of Fort Street’s General Assistants, Kevin Wright has decided to take off his work boots, hang up his hard hat and retire.

We are all so grateful for Kevin’s hard work and assistance around the school.

We’ll miss you Kevin, and wish you all the very best for your new adventures.