Principal’s Report

Dear Fortians, Parents and Carers,

We have less than four weeks of the school year left and tomorrow the Fort will welcome for an orientation to the school 150 Year 6 students who have been selected for the 2022 Year 7 cohort for next year. The last day of school for students this year is Thursday 16 December 2021. Friday 17 December is allocated as a School Development Day for teachers.

HSC Examinations

Year 12 are now over halfway through their HSC exams. Mr Phil Niven, the Presiding Officer in charge of the examinations, reports that he is delighted with the most exemplary way the students are applying themselves to their work with due diligence and behaving impeccably. Our students should feel proud of themselves and their commitment to their studies.

Thank you to all the parents and students from other years for their cooperation with home learning during the larger HSC exams, hopefully these will be last days of home learning that we need to experience for a very long time.

Amendment to Bell times 2022

Throughout the past two years the school has found it almost impossible to staff special religious education in the middle of the school day during the long periods when restrictions have prevented these volunteers from coming onto the school site. For this reason, our special religious education volunteers have agreed to move their time slot to a Thursday morning period 1 in 2022. This will mean that the school day will commence at 9:00am for all students participating in SRE and Ethics on a Thursday. The library will be open from 8:45am until 9:40am for any students not participating in SRE or SEE if they wish to attend school at the usual time for study purposes. Lessons will commence for all students at 9:40am each Thursday from the commencement of 2022.

Student Wellbeing

The wellbeing team at Fort Street have been busy over the past few months remodelling our current year meeting structure for 2022. Next year, all students in Years 7-12 will have ‘Fortunae’ classes timetabled about four times a term. These classes will be reduced in size to approximately 20 students and each class will be assigned a teacher mentor for the year. Lessons for these classes have been mapped to both the wellbeing road map and the schools exit profile. Students will look at goal setting and individual progress they are making towards the schools exit profile.

School Exit Profile

The school exit profile articulates the vision for student achievement at Fort Street. Successful Fortians:

• achieve academic and creative excellence
• develop skills and talents across a broad range of areas
• become reflective and independent learners responsible for their own growth
• develop emotional resilience, self-confidence and the ability to collaborate and communicate effectively
• develop a commitment to fairness and equity, a recognition of their responsibility to the wider community and a strong sense of social justice.

New School Merit and House Structure

Along with the remodelling of wellbeing lessons, Fort Street will launch a new merit system in 2022 in which students will be able to accumulate profile points. The idea will be for students to accumulate points across all areas of the school exit profile throughout their years at Fort Street.

A fifth house will also be introduced so that each core class will have its own ‘house’ to belong to. We are hoping to develop increased leadership opportunities for students along with greater opportunities for all sorts of inter-house competitions rather than only athletics and sports carnival competitions in 2022.

School Staff

On Friday 19 November 44 staff members were able to complete their CPR and practical anaphylaxis training with Surf Life Saving NSW trainers,  further staff groups will be offered the same training early next year.

Welcome to Neil Prothero our new General Assistant who commenced working at the Fort on Monday 8 November. Neil has been kept very busy with pack up and pack down of each HSC exam along with the usual maintenance work that comes with a large school site.

Congratulations to Diana Choy who works in the school print room and reception office on her permanent appointment to Fort Street High School, we are very lucky to have Diana join our team permanently.

P&C

The P&C AGM was held on Wednesday 10 November. I would like to congratulate Michael Easton as returning President, Elizabeth Kenyon and Kirrily Druery as returning Vice Presidents, Hung Ngo as returning Treasurer and Peter Bestel as returning Secretary.

School Website

The Department of Education requires all Public Schools to migrate their websites to the NSW Department of Education website platform by the end of this year. I apologise for any out of date content on our website whilst we construct the new website which will be released shortly.

Looking for Community Mentors

Connected Curriculum: looking for community mentors

Since it was first piloted in 2015, the Year 9 Connected Curriculum Project-Based Learning Unit has been central to every Fort Street High School student’s junior school experience.

During Term 4 a portion of normal class-time is set aside and students work in small, self-directed project teams on a tight schedule with feedback from selected mentor teachers. Each team applies their skills and knowledge to design a plan for a practical solution to a social, environmental, political or technological problem in their local or global community; this year they will address the most ‘wicked’ problem we face today: Climate Change, studying curriculum central to the Year 9 civics and citizenship course and building their knowledge of other subject areas.
The program will open with a small panel of experts, award-winning science journalist Jonica Newby, climate ethicist Byron Smith and Year 9 student activist Lucie Atkin-Bolton. Students will go on to play the Climate Action Simulation game, which will give them an experience not unlike the recent COP 26, and will view, read and discuss various media including Damon Gameau’s film 2040 before embarking on their own quest for creative solutions, which they will present in 3-minute videos. Robyn Williams AO, presenter of ABC Radio National’s Science Show, will close the program with feedback on group presentations.

Each team must select a brief to address from a menu of options grouped under the headings of
– Understanding and Activism
– Mitigation and Sustainability; and
– Adaptation and Resilience

Each project is also broadly aligned to one or more pathways for future career and study and to one or more of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
Students will have approximately 30 hours to explore and research the issue and complete their project before they present their ideas on Friday 3rd December 2021.

We are looking for parent and community mentors, who may have knowledge or experience of climate change mitigation e.g. in governance, industry or media, to view group 3-4 video pitches of their strategy midweek, ideally on the evening of Wednesday 1 December, and offer feedback on ways to make their strategy more practicable.

Please contact me at Elizabeth.maddox@det.nsw.edu.au if you are able to assist.

Elizabeth Maddox
Connected Curriculum Coordinator 2021

Parent’s Guide to online sexual harrassment webinar

All parents and carers are invited to attend this webinar on Thursday 25 November at 7:00pm. The webinar will be co-hosted by the eSafety Commissioner, the NSW P&C Federation and the Department. Register hereExternal link

This webinar will help parents and carers to understand online sexual harassment and image-based abuse (non-consensual sharing of intimate images). It is designed for parents and carers of young people aged 13-18 and it will cover:

• the difference between online sexual harassment and image-based abuse
• how to report online sexual harassment to social media companies
• how to report image-based abuse to eSafety and when to report to police
• where to go for support if you feel upset or worried about something that has happened online.

This is part of our ongoing work and commitment to deliver on the Statement of Intent, co-signed with Catholic Schools NSW and the Association for Independent Schools NSW, to strengthen consent education for children and young people.

Have your say on consent education

We’re inviting parents and carers to have their say on consent education

Past and present students across the state have called for strengthened consent education.

This was sparked by a petition by former Sydney student Chanel Contos which led to thousands of young people sharing their stories of witnessing or experiencing, sexual harassment, abuse and violence amongst young people.

In response to the voices of young people, the heads of the three education sectors signed a Statement of Intent. In this Statement, the NSW Department of Education committed to a number of actions – including partnering with parents and carers to improve consent education.

There is now an opportunity for parents and carers to have their say by completing a short surveyExternal link.

This survey is available in 10 languages other than English and will take less than 10 minutes to complete.

It will help us plan how we can better support consent education at school and at home, and understand the kinds of resources parents and carers would find helpful in having important conversations with their children.

We would like to hear from parents and carers of NSW Public School students of all ages, from all communities. We would appreciate the help of colleagues across the Department to promote this survey to parents and carers across our school communities.

We have attached an optional school newsletter article and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), explaining the purpose of the survey and to support school staff should questions arise.

More information is also available here. The results will also be shared on NSW Department of Education website later this year.

Together, we can help our children and young people form healthy relationships.

Unpacking vaping Q&A

Respectful Language

Year 11 Modern History

For their term two assessment, the Year 11 Modern History students were tasked with producing a museum exhibit in groups of three, covering an empire’s downfall. The group visited the Chau Chak Wing Museum of Sydney University and were led around by guides, who explained how the exhibits were composed and how historical information can be shared, presented, and absorbed. The students also spent some time interacting with various artefacts in the museum, which proved the engagement value of interactive or tangible pieces of history. Students then had the next six weeks to research their respective empires and plan their exhibits. As can be expected of a big two-month group task, many groups scrambled to get everything together, but the end results were great. Aided by the museum visit and class discussions along the way about the different ways in which history can be presented, the Year 11 Modern History group gained a better understanding of the nature of history and learning. Unfortunately, the exhibits could not be seen by parents as in previous years due to the COVID lockdown that ensued just days after their completion. 

Finley Hook

Year 11 Modern History

2022 History Extension

An Enriching English Experience for Year 10

After a year of hard work and enriching learning experiences, the Year 10 English Enrichment program has come to end for another year. This year, we had 13 dedicated students in the class who attended every lesson from week 7, term 1 to week 5, term 4 (even when we went online for 100 days). These students are: Sharaya Acharya, Esther Alex, Hugo Ceran-Jerusalemy, Jeffrey Chu, Arlo Coleman, Ruby Hamilton-Brown, Niamh Hannan-Spinks, William Leung, Ethan Lin, Aslesha Nepal, Arlo Thwaites, Yexuan Yang and Dennis Yeo.

The program this year involved a major work with 4 components: Investigative inquiry question, personal exposition, imaginative story and reflection and the critical essay component. Students were required to compose their own inquiry question from one of four topics that are often explored in great works of literature: War, Human Psyche, Colonialisation and the Representation of the other. Their inquiry question was based on their own curiosity and they had to investigate and present their findings through reading a wide range of literature and writing in different modes. Before the lockdown, the class managed to complete the personal exposition and imaginative story and reflection section. However, the critical essay writing component became tricky to navigate online so the class instead attended a 6-week online intensive essay writing program called the Advanced Writers Critical Writing Program which was invented by me, Ms. Truong, to continuing sharpening their essay writing skills. Each online lesson ran for 1.5 hours once a week and each week, students focused on mastering a different component of essay writing (such as composing an introduction, topic sentence, thesis and textual analysis) to a variety of essay questions such as statement questions and extract questions. During this period, the class also competed in Ms. Truong’s Compulsory Fun Points program for the work they completed every week. The top 6 winners were Niamh Hannan-Spinks, Hugo Ceran-Jerusalemy, Ethan Lin, Dennis Yeo, Jeffrey Chu and Sharaya Acharya. Nonetheless, since they all committed time and effort, they were all rewarded with a certificate for completing a very academically intense English Enrichment program. I am certain that the skills they learnt from this program will allow them to have a strong foundation for critical, creative and reflective writing, skills they will all need to overcome the challenges in their study of Year 11 and HSC English in 2022 and 2023. It was my absolute pleasure to teach this class and I wish them all the best!

Year 10 French

Critical and creative thinking in Year 10 French

Students in Year 10 French have learnt to talk about past events in French using the passé composé. Recently, they were given the challenge of creating a poster/infographic which would assist other learners of French to understand this complex verb tense.

Firstly, students evaluated commercially-produced posters:

They then used Canva to design their own. Students had to apply critical thinking to synthesise a number of elements and explain a complex concept. Their creativity was called upon to present this information in an attractive and accessible way.

After their first drafts were printed, students participated in a “gallery walk” peer feedback session, giving constructive suggestions as to how to improve each other’s work. Students in Year 11 French also evaluated the posters and wrote comments in French to their peers in Year 10.

Students have applied the feedback and the finished products are now on display in C11. They look great and are already drawing the attention and interest of younger students.

Well done, Year 10 French!

Year 9 English Enrichment

This year a group of 12 dedicated Year 9 students completed the English Enrichment course, producing works ranging from epistolary prose to lyric poetry, high fantasy to gritty realism, psychological drama to creative non-fiction. Their support of one another in a year full of challenges was a model of community.

They encouraged each other in their creative endeavours, noticing what made other students’ texts powerful or beautiful, shared sources of literary inspiration and helped each other to find the way through impasses. Witnessing the emergence of original, audacious thinking in our students as they discovered more about their vision and their voice was a privilege and a delight.

Elizabeth Maddox

Year 9 English Enrichment teacher 2021

Year 7 Visual Arts

Duke of Edinburgh Award Adventurous Journey incursion

Remembrance Day 2021

Year 12 leavers- check your school provided services

Casual jobs for students

P&C President’s 2021 Annual Report

 2021, like 2020, has of course been dominated by the coronavirus pandemic. At the start of 2021, Fort St slowly emerged from the first wave of the pandemic, even to the point where the IMP were able to present their midyear Concert in June, however shortly afterwards we went into the second lockdown, which has only just lifted. School and P&C activities have been severely disrupted – our children have missed out on not only the usual excursions, sport and music, but major events the P&C would usually have been involved in such as FortFest and the planned presentation of the musical Matilda.  

Despite all this the P&C has pulled together  to support the school  community and  we are pleased to highlight some positive notes: 

Yet again, we are impressed and amazed at how, with calm, uncomplaining, efficiency, Ms McMurray and the Fort St teachers and staff dealt with the complications and vicissitudes of the pandemic. The school smoothly swung into on-line learning mode. Rules and recommendations seemed to change weekly, yet they were able to adapt with a minimum of fuss.  

Last year, Robyn Elmslie and Ethel Talty organised a GoFundMe campaign which raised over $5000 for a thank you lunch and welcome to the new school year breakfast for Fort St Staff. We have just launched a campaign to recognise their efforts this year, and it seems that we on track to raise a similar amount. To help keep spirits up the P&C has distributed chocolates to the staff, as well as a free, high-quality, washable Fort St face mask. 

Our finances are healthy this year, with funds of approximately $325,000 in our accounts. In the first part of the year we spent some time rationalising the P&C’s bank accounts, and setting up some term deposits to maximise interest. I’d like thank our Treasurer Hung Ngo, and Co-Treasurer Kenny Chee Chung for their hard work, as well as our bookkeeper Donna Cormford, and auditor Sara Wickert. 

Particular thanks is owed to Elizabeth Kenyon for her enormous contributions over this year, not only as the fundraising co-ordinator, but across all P&C activities. Thanks also to Robyn Elmslie for organising the Entertainment Book which has been another great fundraising source 

I acknowledge our incredible P&C Secretary Peter Bestel works so hard to make sure that notices go out, everthing is done when it should be, and generally maintains that thin line between order and chaos.

We have been pleased to see Ms McMurray take advantage of the lockdowns to push forward a number of major projects such the new lecture space, sandstone terracing and covered outdoor learning area. The P&C has contributed to these improvements through: 

• Renovation to library foyer, with new bag storage security cameras, painting and beautiful mural, funded by a Community Building Partnership grant of $23,000 secured for the P&C by Elizabeth Kenyon; 
• Purchasing materials for the new school kitchen garden, again funded by a $6000 grant from the Inner West Council secured for the P&C by Elizabeth Kenyon 
• Providing funding for the installation of an outdoor gym, supported by funding from a raffle organised by the P&C 
• Moving the Uniform Shop to spacious new premises outfitted by volunteer parent labour led by the indefatigable Teresa Matthews and very handy volunteers Tony Canning, Tom Clausius, Helen de Wolfe, Samantha Mar, Felicity Price, Chris Wong, Priscilla Pun, Neroli Butt, Lindsay Badham, Ryan Badham and Christina Wong. 
• Purchase of 14 Air Purifiers + spare filters to ensure air quality and protect against spread of coronavirus. These will be delivered in January 2022 and donated  to the school for use  in under-ventilated areas. Thanks to Tasha Prabhakar and Sally McCausland for arranging this. 

With events cancelled, and parents unable to enter school grounds for a large part of this year, it has been a struggle to develop and maintain the sense of school community. However, we have had a focus on maintaining and developing our communications channels this year.  

Special thanks to Tracey Chen for running the WeChat channel for Mandarin-speakers, and to Kirrily Druery for her work on the P&C Facebook pages. In order to find out how we can further improve our communications, especially for speakers of languages other than English, Kirrily has also put together a fantastic survey which has just been released in English, Mandarin, Korean and Vietnamese, and which I encourage everyone to respond to. 

Kalanie Prabhakar from the Student Representative Council attended every meeting and did a fantastic job connecting the P&C and the SRC, keeping us updated about their activities and helping us to provide support. 

Following a presentation in July this year by Fort St teachers Jenny Xu and Kylie Salisbury, the P&C sent letters to the NSW Education Minister and other relevant politicians to support a response to the recent Gallop Inquiry into the Future of the Teaching Profession. This inquiry highlighted the current problems afflicting the profession, such as increased administrative burdens, lack of career certainty and low salaries which are deterring potential teachers. The Fort St P&C supported calls by the NSW Teachers Federation to address these problems 

I would like to thank our Uniform Shop manager Gladys Ko for her fantastic work this year – handling the difficulties of adapting to various coronavirus restrictions, dealing with the havoc caused in relation to the fittings for new students, straining the capacity of the online ordering system, and managing the transition to her new premises. Gratitude is also owed to the co-ordinators Teresa Matthews and Suzanne Trimmer, and their volunteers.  

Sally McCausland has continued to organise the Second Hand Uniform Shop which is now integrated into the new premises. Sally has also overseen the handover of the operation of the Second Hand Uniform Shop to the Year 10 SRC, who have volunteered on the stalls this year and  can now decide where and how the funds raised will be spent for the benefit of students. 

The P&C’s IMP subcommittee has supported Matt Manchester and his team through another very tough year of lockdowns. The Fort St IMP or instrumental music program, is the largest co-curricular program in the school,  with over 300  students. It is essential to what makes Fort Street  a special place. Unlike many other public school music programs, the IMP has survived this year intact, its membership healthy and ready for bigger things in 2022.  

This year the IMP refined and streamlined its adaptable teaching methods, ensuring that musical tuition was delivered continuously in whatever form was permissible. It also took advantage of the brief windows of opportunity for live music.  In addition to pulling off  band camp in term 1, the IMP also staged the mid year concert. Those of you who were there will remember the atmosphere – the hall jammed to the brim with families, the fabulous performances and the excellent food catered by the school community. Thanks to all  the IMP subcommittee members – Francine Cutler as convenor and the other committee members Suzanne Dang, Adam Murphy, Sally McCausland, Suzanne Trimmer, Lucia Evangelista, Magdalena Rosza, Heather Kelley, and Tania Koit. Thanks also  to  all the parent volunteers who stepped up to assist at camp and the mid year concert in so many ways, in particular Rowena Mabbott for undertaking the huge job of arranging the catering. Tania Koit is stepping in as convenor for 2022 and we know she will do a great job. 

We will shortly be running our elections for the new committee. I encourage everyone to consider nominating themselves for a spot of the committee. It is a great way to see how the school runs, and to make your contribution to the school community. If you have a particular concern or area of interest, it is the best way to bring it to the attention of the P&C and the school.  

Finally I would like to highlight some goals and areas I believe could be the focus of P&C funds, energy and resources in 2022: 

• Promote the communications survey and use the data to improve our communications across the school community; 
• Assist with the rescheduled presentation of Matilda in Term 2 of 2022, including running the ticket sales and catering 
• Continue to fund school improvements: one idea is the possibility of upgrade of the acoustics and sound system in the school hall, and music studios 
• Develop a school sports strategy, prepare for the return of school sports next year 
• Reinstitute Information Sessions for 30 mins prior to monthly P&C meetings 
• Review Digital Devices strategy. 

 Thank  you to everyone for your contributions through the year. I look forward to a better and  brighter 2022. 

Second hand uniform

P&C Update

P&C Uniform Shop Volunteers

BYOD printing in the library

Students – you are now able to send a print job directly from your BYOD device to the library printer. Please see the attached instructions and if you have any questions, please see Ms Page, Teacher Librarian.

The instructions are here: byod printing in library

Nextgen Challenge 2022

The University of Canberra is delighted to announce our Business, Government and Law faculty will be the next host of the Illuminate:nextgen Challenge 2022 with dates to be confirmed, we aim to provide this in line with UC’s semester 2, 2022 Orientation dates in July.

The Illuminate:nextgen Challenge is the flagship program of Illuminate Education Australia, providing high school students with authentic entrepreneurial environments for students to activate the confidence, creativity and capability to reach their full potential through solving problems in their community. Supported by experienced facilitators at every step and with support of the community and our partners, participants work in teams to develop a new project or business idea, developing key skills including;

• Communication (Speaking, Writing & Presentation Skills)
• Understanding (Critical Thinking, Inquiry, Digital & Financial Literacy)
• Solving Problems (Creativity, Problem Solving & Reflection)
• Working Smart (Collaboration, Organisation & Perseverance)

These are core employability skills and the Nextgen Challenge is an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate these skills in practice.

Students who are interested in participating in the challenge next year can begin to prepare by considering which specific problem in their local community they would like to address.

Please see the Careers Adviser, Ms Salisbury, in the Careers office in the library for more information

Foster carers needed

The NSW Department of Communities and Justice is seeking people who are interested in providing short term or crisis foster care.  For more information please see the attached:

2021 DCJ_SchoolKid_FosteringSchoolNews_BW_100hx106w