Principal’s Report

Dear Fortians, Parents and Carers,

Official opening of Fort Street’s Cricket Nets
Last year, Fort St High School and the Canterbury & Western Suburbs Cricket Association secured $40,000 in grants through the NSW ICC T20 World Cup 2020 Cricket Legacy Fund and the Australian Cricket Infrastructure Fund.

The grants have enabled Fortians and club participants to access quality cricket facilities and cricket programs to help foster the continued growth in female and junior cricket in the Inner West. Young female players from the Marrickville Junior Cricket Club access these facilities now three times a week outside of school hours, guaranteeing them a safe, exclusive, quality place to train.

Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne and Cricket NSW CEO Lee Germon were on hand for the opening of the new facilities at Fort St High School, Petersham, on Tuesday.

Photo – Ian Bird

Remembrance Day 2020
In lieu of our traditional whole school Remembrance Day Assembly the school did come to a stop at 11am on 11 November to pay tribute to those who have served in war and to observe a minute’s silence. I would like to thank Barisha Tashnin (Year 10) who gave the student address and Jonathon Kelley (Year 12) who played the ‘Last Post’ bugle call.

Congratulations – ART EXPRESS 2021 confirmations
The following two students have been selected to be included in ARTEXPRESS in 2021:
Raphael Taib ‘The heaviness of air in a state of total equilibrium’ will appear in The Armoury, Sydney Olympic Park SOPA and Grafton Regional Gallery.
Alexander Wang ‘Suzanne’ will appear in the Maitland Regional Art Gallery.

Congratulations – OnSTAGE 2021 confirmation
Tom Stevens script ‘No laughing matter’ has been selected for inclusion in the 2021 program.

Recognition Assemblies
It has also been an absolute pleasure to recognise our high achievers at the recognition assemblies held over the past fortnight for Years 11 and 10. During the Year 10 assembly our newly elected SRC executive were also inducted, hopefully we will be able to hold another assembly to which parents can be invited early next year. The next fortnight will see Years 8 and 9 students recognised at their formal year assemblies on Friday.

P&C
I would like thank Ethel Talty for her work as President of the P&C and to extend a warm congratulations to the newly elect P&C executive for 2021:

President – Michael Easton
Vice President – Elizabeth Kenyon
Peter Bestel – Secretary

P&C Executive Committee members:
Suzanne Trimmer
Tania Koit
Michael Mera
Robyn Elmslie
Ethel Talty

Change in timetable for Bus Route 413
Thanks to the proactive approach of one of our students Victoria Papathanasiou (Year 9) and Mrs Papathanasiou, Transport NSW has announced that the bus service of route 413 will be brought forward to 3.21pm to better align with the school finishing times.

Naidoc Week

The SRC put together a wall display relating to the theme ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’ in the Kilgour Quad as part of Naidoc Week..

They collected signatures for an Amnesty International petition which calls upon State Governments to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years old.

Recognition Assemblies

As the Principal outlined in her report in the previous newsletter, there will be a recognition assembly for each year group over the remaining weeks of this school year. Normally there are two recognition assemblies per semester which are grand occasions for everyone to witness the acknowledgement of fellow students of all ages. This semester due to health regulations, the year advisers and I are arranging the presentation of certificates and other items on a smaller scale. It remains a time to applaud those individuals who have been noticeably conscientious in more than one subject area. We also identify young Fortians for their leadership and school service too.

Mark Backhouse

Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Competition

Congratulations to Lachlan McIntyre of Year 7 who has come first in NSW in the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Competition for Semester 2 2020. Lachlan won a prize of $400!!! This competition is entered by tens of thousands of students across Australia. We have never had a student at Fort St win a monetary prize in this competition before.

Lachlan started the competition with $50,000 in pretend money to invest in shares in the ASX200. He invested in Nine Media and Dominos Pizza among other shares on the first day then held. With a few weeks to go in the competition he sold shares in AGL Energy and bought shares in Afterpay. He says he was incredibly lucky on the last day of the competition, as he gained more than $3,000 that day. Lachlan ended the competition with $59,446.52 – an almost 20% gain in his portfolio in just two months. In contrast, the official interest rate (the cash rate) is now 0.1% for the whole year. What an impressive achievement by Lachlan!

Lachlan is quoted in the ASX newsletter

“My advice to help others would probably just be confident, don’t second guess yourself half-way through!”

https://game.asx.com.au/game/info/school/newsletter?ecid=O~E~~~~~~~~13cf8c14-604d-42c3-908e-cc50d0580426

Children’s Bookshop visit

On 4 November, Paul McDonald of the Children’s Bookshop came and spoke to some of our Year 7 students about what’s new in the world of children’s and young adult fiction. Paul McDonald has a background as an English teacher and has won numerous teaching awards as well as awards for his contributions to the field of children’s and teen fiction. At the end of his entertaining and informative presentation, students had the opportunity to look through the books discussed and select books that we bought for the library’s collection.

Donna Page

Teacher Librarian

L’histoire de la baguette

Over the last few weeks the Year 9 French class dreamed up, wrote, rehearsed, memorised, blocked and performed their very own play about the French Revolution: “La Révolution française, or l’histoire de la baguette”. As well as being writers and performers, they were prop and costume designers, and our expert sound engineer managed to splice the Dr Who theme neatly on to Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, matching key, timbre and tempo with staggering precision. The Year 9s wrote the play with the Year 7 French classes in mind, half in simple French and half in English, with plenty of language jokes and a good measure of slapstick humour. The plot traced two Aussie tourists’ visit to France, and and the final result was both entertaining and enlightening, with a bit of magic involved. The play’s final line was a COVID-friendly affirmation of home, as one of the tourists exclaimed, on leaving Paris: “I miss Bowral!”

Our wonderful Year 9 French students are to be congratulated on this spectacular effort.

Elizabeth Maddox

P&C News

AGM and New Committee Members

The Fort Street High School Parents & Citizens Association held its AGM over Zoom on Wednesday 11 November, 2020.
After a year putting in hours of hard work updating, reforming and streamlining the P&C’s systems and processes, and seeing through projects like the new cricket nets, P&C President Ethel Talty and Treasurer Tim Lyford have stepped down. Thank you to both Tim and Ethel for their sterling service and invaluable contributions!
Michael Easton has taken up the role of P&C President, with Elizabeth Kenyon taking on the role of Vice-President, and Peter Bestel staying on as Secretary. The other new P&C Executive Committee members are: Suzanne Trimmer, Tania Koit, Michael Mera, Robyn Elmslie and Ethel Talty. Thank you to everyone for volunteering their time.
We are currently looking for a new Treasurer. This is a fantastic way to get involved in, and contribute to work of the P&C in enhancing our kids’ experiences at Fort Street. Accounts are run on Xero, and we do engage some professional assistance. If you are interested, please email us at fortstreethighschool@pandcaffiliate.org.au or call Michael Easton on 0439 390 435.

Uniform Shop Volunteers
The Uniform Shop is looking for volunteers to help with new student fittings on Dec 18th. If you think you might be able to help with this please contact our uniform shop representative Teresa Matthews. Please note to volunteer for this you must hold a valid Working With Children Check. If you don’t have one already, you can apply for a WWCC online, and it is free for volunteers.

Please Donate – Thank You Lunch for Fort Street Staff
We all know that it has been a crazy year for the staff and teachers, who have done an amazing job in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic and related restrictions. To acknowledge this, the P&C are running a collection for the End of Year School Staff Lunch to say thank you. Donations are open until 1 December, 2020. To make a contribution, please visit the following link: https://app.grouptogether.com/EndofYearThankYouFortStTeachersStaff

Invitation for December P&C Meeting
You are invited to attend the next meeting of the Fort Street P&C which will be held by Zoom on Wednesday 9 December, 2020.

https://au01web.zoom.us/j/62007136678?pwd=Z2RaYXUwR01NUUk1cmpYM0lpaDhHdz09

Fortian News

Reunions have been few and far between this year, so it was lovely to hear that some of the boys of 1963 met for lunch recently. We were unable to invite them on to the school grounds but really look forward to welcome them, and other Fortians, back to school in the not too distant future.

The boys of 1963 had a 50 year reunion at school in 2013 and went on to apply for and receive a grant from The Department of Veteran Affairs for a new honour board dedicated to Fortians who served in conflicts after World War 2. This honour board is displayed in the School Memorial Hall.

We were fortunate to have this group of Fortians visit us in 2019 when they were celebrating 60 years since they started at Fort Street, when Graham Easton (Vice Captain 1963), who has two grandchildren at Fort Street, gave an entertaining talk at one of our recognition assemblies.

We look forward to their 60 year reunion in 2023!

Jules Davies
Alumni Relations