Farewell Year 12 2023

At the end of last term we farewelled Year 12 2023.

They had a great celebration week with a massive water fight at the Picnic on Monday. Tuesday consisted of a final Mr Guy’s QI Trivia with the whole grade (first whole grade trivia since Year 7 camp) and the colour run. On Wednesday, shirts were covered in messages of friendship to each other at the BBQ breakfast, the FLOP assembly, which ran surprisingly undertime, was full of smiles and tears. Finally, on Wednesday night, we were able to celebrate with all the families at the Graduation Evening.

The whole week ran smoothly, and the students were perfectly respectful the whole time.

We will miss you, Year 12 2023.

<3 Mr Guy

Principals Report

Dear Fortians, Parents and Guardians, 

On the first day back of term 4 an HSC information evening was held at school for Year 11 students and their parents. If any students were unable to attend that information session, they need to pop into Ms Cameron’s office (Yrs 7, 9 and 11 Deputy Principal) to pick up their copy of the 2023-2024 HSC Assessment Booklet and the NESA HSC Rules and Procedures booklet.  

I would like to extend my enormous gratitude to the staff who gave up their school holidays to accompany and supervise Fortians on various international and interstate trips these past holidays. Mr Morrison and Mr De Jong accompanied Ms Reynolds to Germany for 23 days for the German language tour. Mr Boyle, Ms Catalan and Ms Nolan accompanied Mr Gillespie to Japan for 14 days for the Japanese language tour. Mr Patane and Ms Bui also accompanied Fortians to Melbourne for the 2023 RoboCup Australian National Championships. Without the long hours of preparation and willingness of staff to give up their own personal time with friends and family such amazing opportunities would not be available to our students. 

New Staff: 

I would also like to extend a warm welcome to new members of staff this term. Mr Dai Dong has commenced this term as our new and permanent Head Teacher Technology. Mr Dong joins us from Sefton High School and teaches many technology subjects including Engineering and Design and Technology. We also welcome our new and permanent Head Teacher Wellbeing Ms Kristina Strati who is joining us from Cronulla High School. As well as an outstanding leader of wellbeing, Ms Strati is also an experienced English teacher. 

Mr Adrian Mok is replacing Ms Starr in Visual Arts for the remainder of the year and Mr Chan has also joined the History faculty for the remainder of this year. 

Congratulations: 

The Year 10 Fort Street RoboCup team Silverback – H. Phan, J. Nguyen, I. Lee and J. Sumner, placed second in the 2023 Australian Championships earlier this month. The level of competition was very high this year and in recognition of the teams hard work and dedication these students have been invited to the 2023 Asia-Pacific Robocup competition in South Korean and also to the 2024 International RoboCup competition which will be held in the Netherlands. Whilst these boys may not necessarily be able to make their way to these events they deserve enormous praise for gaining a position at such a high level.  

On Sunday 29 October the Sydney Southeast Symphonic Winds orchestra will perform at the Verbrugghen Hall – Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Congratulations to H. Kan, H. Newman and R. Winkler who will be performing alongside students from 51 Primary and Secondary Schools. 

Ms McMurray’s temporary departure: 

Students, staff and parents have been informed of my secondment by the Department of Education to support Randwick Girls High School and Randwick Boys High School as these schools’ merge into one coeducational High School in 2025. This position commences on Monday 213 October and will continue until the end of term 2 2024.  

This position is only temporary, and I will be returning to my position at Fort Street at the conclusion of this role. Ms Rebecca Cameron has accepted to relieve as Principal during my absence and I am confident that she will continue to lead the school forward in an exemplary manner.  

Ms Janice Eastment is currently relieving Deputy Principal for Mr Morrison for the remainder of 2023 and Ms Carolyn Mattick will take up this position in 2024. An expression of interest has been advertised to place a second Deputy Principal to relieve in Ms Cameron’s position until the end of Term 2, 2024. It is hoped that this person will commence in week 4 of this term. 

I hope to be able to visit the school for some key events throughout the first half of next year and look forward to catching up with students, staff and parents then. 

Upcoming Events: 

Monday 23 October – Thursday November 2nd HSC exams continue 

Tuesday 24 October – Vaccination catch ups for Year10 

Friday 27 October – House Captain elections 

Friday 27 October – Year 8 Science Exam – VALID 

Tuesday 31 October – Halloween Dress Up Day 

Thursday 2 November – Year 11 Geography Excursion 

Friday 3 November – Year Meeting Yr 10 and Fortunae 7,8,9 and 11 

Congratulations to our new SRC Representatives

Hi Fort Street!

At the end of last term, the incoming and outgoing SRC attended SRC Camp. 

On Day 1, we arrived at school with our bags (and apparently our footballs and unicorn neck pillows) for the bus, which took us to a camp in Mount Victoria. On the way, many of us were furiously racing to finish writing our warm and fuzzies: an SRC tradition of giving notes to fellow SRC members letting them know how much we appreciate them, and making them feel “warm and fuzzy”. On arrival, we were welcomed and had a great lunch (detailed food reviews and camp vlog coming soon on SRC social media!). The new executive team ran an icebreaker session, playing games like Salt and Pepper and Bingo. After this, we split into two groups, each group either playing laser tag in the bush, or practising archery. Although my laser tag accuracy was around 10%, my team did quite well, and both activities were heaps of fun.

In the evening, we had plenty of free time where we got to know our new SRC members and prepared for our costume competition (another tradition). Each year, the executives decide on a broad costume theme, and each year group decides on a theme underneath that. This year’s overall theme was 2000s pop culture, and year group costumes included the Wiggles, Plants vs Zombies, and the Minions (by Year 9), who won for the second year in a row! We also had a Trivia Night which tested our knowledge on everything from the periodic table to which exec recently used the dinosaur emoji. After this, we had supper and returned to our cabins to sleep (or, in some cases, attempt to scrub off the bright green face paint we had on).

On Day 2, we woke up for an 8:00am breakfast and got ready for the busy day ahead. We started with a Strategic Review of 2022-23 run by the outgoing executives. We talked about the events and initiatives we ran, what we thought of them, and how we could improve for the year ahead. This was a really productive session and the new executives now have heaps of feedback to work with. After morning tea, the incoming executives ran our own Planning and Brainstorming session, where we asked the whole SRC for ideas about everything from publicity to infrastructure to SRC meetings themselves. We then held our Presidential/Vice Presidential election, where four candidates gave their speeches to the SRC before the final vote. 

The new executive team for 2023-24 is:

President – Eleanor Alonso Love

Vice President – Dante Diaz

Secretaries – Emma Howes and Claire Bentley

Treasurer – Erick Zhang

Data Analyst – Charlie Dey

Committee Liaison – Jesse Groves

Publicity Manager – Christian Burger

We can’t wait for the amazing year ahead and to do our best for the school!

Eleanor Alonso Love (she/her)

Year 12 vs Staff Soccer Match

The ever-enthusiastic Year 12 students recently took on the staff in a Soccer match for eternal superiority. It was an epic match, with dozens of Year 12’s suiting up and showing their skills and some ‘experienced’ staff members reliving childhood dreams.

There were some memorable moments, like Mr Morrison’s huge throw-ins, Jimmy Murphy’s goal and brilliant teacher-style celebration, Alyssa Khaw and Jasmine Loh outrunning all of their teachers and Mr McMahon scoring a once-in-a-lifetime goal from the corner.

With the Year 12’s controlling the majority of the match, the score was tied at 1-1 at the end of regulation time. With the competitive Fort Street nature coming out, a draw would not suffice and a decision was made to decide the game via a penalty shoot-out. The penalty shootout was reminiscent of Australia vs France in the Women’s World Cup, with over a dozen different people lining-up to take a kick. In the end, Mr Sarif from the PDHPE department made a big save and broke the deadlock, winning the game for the staff! (See the video for evidence).

It was a fun game, played in great spirits. Scores of people took part and it felt like the whole school was there to watch. Thanks to the Class of 2023 for making it all happen!

Check out a little of the action in the video below:

Wear It Purple Day 2023

Friday 25^th August was ‘Wear It Purple Day 2023’. The aim of ‘Wear It Purple Day’ was to foster supportive, safe, empowering and inclusive environments for rainbow young people. The theme for this year’s event was ‘Write Your Story’.

The Fort Street Diversity Committee and the Year 10 Charity Committee planned a terrific day of events. There was some background information given by Akshaya and Gina at the assembly, students wearing purple clothing to show their support, some pronoun badges and information given out at recess, a story wall in the Fountain Quad, screening of some related movies in the Hall and a bake sale at lunch time.

The day was a success, with a large portion of the school wearing purple and donning pronoun badges. The bake sale was also hugely popular and Fort Street ended-up raising over $1250 for the Wear It Purple Day organisation!

Thank you to the Fort Street community for your generosity and support. Thank you to all the staff and students who supported the day and got involved in the different activities. Special thank you to the Diversity Committee and the Year 10 Charity Committee, who put in a lot of time and effort to make the day such a success.

Year 7 Gala Day

Monday 11^th September was the Year 7 Gala Day. All of the Year 7’s headed out to Meadowbank Park to play sport against Year 7’s from other schools in our zone. The venue was a hive of activity, with different round robin tournaments for Soccer, Handball, Volleyball, Oz-Tag and Netball.

The participation of our Year 7’s was terrific and they were very enthusiastic and active across the whole day. The games were played in good spirits and the Year 7’s got the chance to socialise with students from the other schools. These connections will be important, as they will likely be playing sport against each other for the majority of their high school years.

Joining the Year 7’s were twenty Year 10 coaches, who had volunteered their time to give the younger students some assistance. The Year 10’s ended-up both coaching and refereeing the games and were invaluable in the running of the day. Both year groups worked well together and managed to complete the tournaments with minimal-to-no assistance from the teachers! It was a great day out in the sun and another example of sport bring people together.

Combined High Schools 15 Girls Basketball

On Tuesday 29^th September, the 15 Girls CHS Basketball team travelled to Terrigal on the Northern Beaches for the fourth round of the CHS knockout competition. It was a mini-tournament with all the best teams in the region.

We were scheduled to play two games, the first against Northern Beaches Secondary College and the second against Tuggerah Lakes Secondary College. We lost the first game despite some great leadership and play from our Year 10 students. With only a short break between games, we managed to regroup and drew our second game. We ended up finishing third overall for the tournament, which was a tremendous effort.

Our players were commendable throughout and represented the school with class. They should be very proud of the way they played the game and how they carried themselves on and off the court.

Congratulations to the members of the team for making it as far as they did:

Captain – Ashley Huang Yr 10

Koharu Seino Yr 10

Alexa Salmon Yr 10

Nina Gibian Yr 10

Nicholette Anastasia Yr 9

Eden Davis Yr 9

Joyce Zhang Yr 8

Avivi Davidson Yr 7

Nea Tarrant Yr 7

Victoria Zhao Yr 7

Xixi He Yr 7

Fort Street Japan trip

Over the holidays, the year 10 and 11 Japanese classes went on an exchange trip to Japan, visiting cities such as Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima while also attending our sister school, Suginami Sogo High School, for one week. We had a truly incredible time while over there, experiencing new cultures, making new friends, and working on our Japanese.

This trip was unable to run for years due to COVID-19, making it all the more special that parents, teachers, and students alike from both schools came together in order to make the trip happen.

Suginami Sogo

After having spent a day getting acclimated to Japan, we headed right off to Suginami Sogo on Monday for our welcome assembly, where the students of the school put on numerous performances for us and multiple speeches were exchanged in both English and Japanese. From there we spent the rest of the school week attending classes and clubs, as well as exploring Tokyo in our free time. It was a blast, and I could really feel my Japanese improving in just a few days of being among native speakers.

There were many cultural differences, such as changing shoes when entering the gym building, vending machines present within the school, and classes which, like primary school, all took place in just one room per class, but what surprised me the most was how similar the students were to everyone at Fort Street. While the language barrier was difficult to overcome, I felt right at home among my friends at Suginami Sogo.

We had an amazing (if tiring) time both at the school and exploring Japan during the week after, eating delicious food, and experiencing the highlights of Japanese culture.

Special thanks to all the teachers who chaperoned us on the trip: Mr Boyle, Miss Catalan, Miss Nolan, and especially Mr Gillespie, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Written by

Nicholas Caus

Year 11

P&C News

At our meeting this week we had a strong turn out over Zoom. A special thanks to new SRC members who attended and presented for their first ever meeting – Beatrice S and Divyan G. The P&C looks forward to working with you!

During this meeting we had a full agenda but of course we were all very keen to hear from Ms McMurray about her move to Randwick to help manage the merger of the boys and girls schools. We were very relieved when Ms McMurray assured us she will definitely be coming back to Fort Street next year. We wish her all the best with this challenging role.

Other agenda items included:

Uniform shop fittings for new students – we are still in need of more volunteers and would love this years Year 7 families to help out. Please sign up here https://signup.com/go/kMwQbJL

School Photographer – it was agreed between both staff and parents that the photo shopped group photos were not great and it has already been agreed that next year physical photos will be taken instead.

Year 7 Welcome event – we will be holding a welcome event for new Year 7 families in Term 1 next year and will be asking for volunteers to help run the event

2024 Celebrations for 175 years of Fort Street – we will be celebrating and using Fort Fest as the means to do this. It is planned for Friday evening September 20,2024

Messaging for students – an issue was raised that some students are missing important school messages because of not being able to access their phones at school. Staff will be reminded to use all platforms and give students plenty of notice. The school will also make more use of the LED sign in the quad and add daily notices to it each day

Open Girls Volleyball requested funds for some new equipment and the P&C agreed to fund $1,800

Teacher Acknowledgements – parents wanted to acknowledge the fantastic efforts of all of the teachers that took the students overseas during the holidays, to Japan, Germany and Melbourne.

Annual General Meeting

Our next meeting will be our Annual General Meeting where all positions on the P&C will become vacant and parents and carers are welcome to nominate themselves to become a part of the executive. Michael our current President will be stepping down as he no longer has any children at Fort Street so we are looking for someone to take on the role. The executive team are a welcoming and supportive group and would love to welcome a new parent to the role. No experience is necessary. If you are interested or would like any further information email us at fortstreethighschool@pandcaffiliate.org.au