Principal’s Report

Dear Fortians, Parents and Carers,

This year, our students have been strong and courageous, and they have been supported by our professional, talented and very hard-working members of staff to whom we are very grateful. I would like to take this opportunity to thank every member of staff for their exceptional dedication and every member of our community for your incredible support.

I would like to thank the P&C for another great year and for raising such a generous amount of money to thank the staff which was used to provide an amazing Christmas lunch on the last day of the school year. The money raised will also fully pay for a catered lunch on the first day back in 2022. The staff were extremely appreciative on Friday afternoon and were sent off to their holidays in excellent spirits.

The SRC students also hosted a thank you breakfast for our cleaning staff on Wednesday 15 December which was a lovely gesture and well received.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and holiday season – may you be safe, healthy and have a wonderful time over the summer.

2022 Return to school dates

Year 11 will depart for their 3-day camp on Monday 31 January at 7:45am.

Year 7 and 12 along with the Year 10 Peer Support Leaders, will start back on Tuesday 1 February 2022. Year 8, 9 and 10 students will return on Wednesday 2 February 2022.

Farewell

On the last day of school, we farewelled a number of valued staff who will not be returning to the Fort in 2022. Ms Catriona Arcamone (English), Mr Brett Scovell (Maths), Ms Gillian Maury (School Counsellor), Ms Genevieve Flynn (Technology), Jules Davies (Community Engagement) and Ms Marjan McKeough (Library).

Ms Catriona Arcamone has had a long and successful career in education. Catriona was appointed to the Fort 16 years ago as Head Teacher English. Catriona spent over three years in the deputy principal role and for the past year has worked in the learning centre. She is loved by students and staff and will be dearly missed.

Mr Brett Scovell has worked in the Mathematics faculty also for 16 years at Fort Street, he has mentored many beginning maths teachers and inspired countless students. Mr Scovell leaves the Fort to become Head Teacher Mathematics at Gosford High School, the students of Gosford High School are certainly very lucky.

Ms Geneveive Flynn – arrived to us in 2017 as a preservice teacher completing her internship. She worked closely with Ms Blake and Ms Cameron during that time and it was evident then that she was going to be an outstanding teacher. In her time at the Fort Ms Flynn has been a casual teacher, part of the CAPA faculty job sharing with Ms Blake and working in the Technology Department. She has always put her hand up to take on extra responsibilities which have included art studio, water polo and Duke of Edinburgh Award. Ms Flynn will be dearly missed by the students and teaching staff.

Ms Gillian Maury – has been working part time at the Fort for four years in the role of School Counsellor. Ms Maury has retired to become the primary carer for her husband.

Ms Marjan McKeough – has also chosen to retire after working one day a week as assistant to the librarian for many years at the Fort.

Ms Jules Davies – was appointed as executive officer of the Foundation and School Council in 2006. In more recent years Jules has edited and published Mercurius each fortnight and has looked after the school’s website.

Congratulations

Stella Sharwood of Year 12 whose HSC costume design Drama project has been selected to be included for the OnSTAGE exhibition in the foyer of the Seymour Centre, Sydney from Monday 14 February to Friday 18 February 2022.

Year 11 2021

The Year 11 exam period has been completed without any interruptions and on Wednesday 15 December all Year 11 students participated in an HSC preparation day. All students rotated between four sessions including HSC assessments and the illness misadventure process with Ms Cameron, ATARs and moderation with Mr Scovell, study skills with Mr Pagani and stress management/looking after yourself with Ms Mann. These presentations will be made available to Year 11 parents.

Year 12 2021 – ATARs

A reminder that ATARs will be released at 9am on Thursday 20 January 2022 to give students as much time as possible to finalise their preferences by midnight on Friday 21 January for January Round 2.

January Round 2, on Wednesday 26 January, is the first offer round for Year 12 students based on ATAR and IB results.

How to get your ATAR? Log in via UAC’s website. Students need their NESA Year 12 student number and UAC PIN to log in. When you view your ATAR, download your official ATAR Advice Notice. This is free until Monday 28 March 2022. After this date you will need to buy it from the UAC shop at a cost of $60.

The ATAR Enquiry Centre will be open for students who have queries about the calculation of their ATAR from 8.30am on the following days:

• Thursday 20 January
• Friday 21 January
• Monday 24 January
• Tuesday 25 January
• Wednesday 26 January.

Call 1300 MY ATAR (1300 692 827) or (02) 9119 5012.

UAC PIN reminder – If you have lost your Year 12 student number, call NESA on 1300 13 83 23. If you have lost your UAC PIN, call UAC on (02) 9752 0200.

Students who have applied through UAC can reset their UAC PIN using the ‘Forgotten your PIN?’ link on the application login page.

If students are having problems logging in to the UAC application, the quickest and easiest way for them to get help is to call UAC Customer Service on (02) 9752 0200, 8.30am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday..

Japanese and French feast

Farewell Catriona Arcamone

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. There was much wisdom, there was much foolishness… (Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities – and my teaching career!)

My teaching life has been bookended thus – For two years I was the youngest member of staff at Auburn GHS, for much of my career I have been exactly the average age of the teaching profession, and for the last two years I believe I have been the oldest teacher at Fort Street! I completed my HSC exactly 50 years ago, and began my career in 1976, likely before some of you were born, or when you were babes in arms!

I have had the joy of teaching K-12 – from a two-teacher school in Spencer, on the Hawkesbury River, and of course in big comprehensive co-ed schools such as Arthur Phillip in Parramatta. I have also taught adults – calligraphy, pedagogy, programming, and presentations to colleagues of modules in English Standard, Advanced and Extension courses. I have taught a wide range of subjects – English of course, but also drama, history, geography, music, Renaissance dance, woodwork to name a few! Probably, some not all that well. I have had students in classes termed IM and GA, for intellectually disabled, or “intellectually moderate” students doing general activities, and I have also taught quite a number of students who have graced the league tables and received state ranks in my subjects – including several first in state.

I have seen young boys grow into fabulous young men, young girls into fabulous young, (and older women), and, more recently, young boys grow into fabulous young women and conversely, young girls grow into wonderful young men. This is the joy of teaching, and it is such a joy when you see some of your students as they mature – make successful careers, become parents, become fabulous adults.

Teaching, as you all know, is so much more than imparting knowledge – it’s hopefully about imparting wisdom, teaching critical thinking, empowering the young to be creative, encouraging collaboration, cooperation, helping the development of empathy and true understanding. Teaching is full of surprises, and it’s also full of many learning experiences.

As teacher, Year Adviser, Head Teacher, of English and some varied faculties, and DP, one is privy to much in the lives of our students and their families, way beyond the confines of the classroom. I have seen and known more than I would have expected to know in my role as an educator: I have been in a school where a Year 7 girl was abducted and murdered, where one of my students was the sister of four convicted rapists, a fifth of her seven brothers was murdered, the youngest electrocuted. Her mother remained in Afghanistan, her father was a doctor, and a bully. One of the students in my year group ran away from home and became a missing person – we don’t know if she was ever found. I discovered that a number of under-age girls who suddenly disappeared from my junior classes had become wives overseas, a few became wives and mothers while still at school in my Sydney classroom. Sadly, these arrangements for most of them were not what they had hoped for. On the eve of her HSC a student and her family were taken from their home and incarcerated in Villawood, where I was able to speak to her on the phone, then secretly deported to Malaysia. Despite the best efforts of her friends and the school we have never since heard from her. Substance abuse, prostitution, drug dealing, and paedophilia have impacted a number of students who have been in my care. And of course, there has been the awful tragedy of a much too large number of suicides.

Apart from our one recent tragedy, I would just like to say that none of the incidents I have mentioned have been connected to Fort Street – but I have mentioned them because they have been significant events in my teaching career, and, have impacted the way I teach and respond to the students with whom I have had the great privilege of working. Like every other aspect of the human condition, what we consider to be humanity is part of a broad spectrum – and being a teacher gives one insight and continues to surprise one that the spectrum is so broad. One of the great pleasures of teaching English is that you can indulge your passion for literature, critical theory and philosophy. What underpins much of our teaching and discussion is the study of the human condition, the notion of what it means to be human. From Frankenstein to Blade Runner, Homer’s Odyssey to Joyce’s Ulysses, Midsummer Night’s Dream to Hamlet, we can conduct meaningful discourse which I know has impacted the way so many students, and of course our brilliant Fortians, to think and thence conduct themselves brilliantly in the world beyond the Fort. It’s an added joy when students let you know, of their own volition, as frequently happens, that the study of English literature illuminates and informs their understanding of life!

The joys of working with students at the Fort have been many and varied – from the sublime to the ridiculous, the hilarious to the tragic, the inspiring to the perplexing. There are the joys of discussing Nietzsche, Calvino or Hegel with a Year 9 student who can talk you under the table, to the extraordinary joy of receiving a few words, then sentences from those who cannot speak. There’s the wonderful contradiction of being given a published copy of a book of 206 pages from the student from whom extracting an essay was well-nigh impossible, the thrill of the student who came to school irregularly but attended every Extension 2 lesson on time with a passion and grace, the irony of working on creative and critical projects where the writing is sublime, but knowing that your edits and the teaching of the use of the semi colon is still a necessity.

My time as teacher, for about forty years, reflects a number of changes in the system – and anyone interested in history will know that although we need to learn from our past, change and reform is a slow process. There have been some good changes though. I received a teacher’s scholarship, and entered university in the Whitlam era – without Gough that would not have been possible for me – a mere female. Maternity leave was 6 weeks only – but day care was not really an organised thing – one had to make private arrangements – if you were lucky enough to find someone. Returning to school part-time was not an option, and there were still a number of men and women who resented the fact that maternity leave was even a thing! My response was that hopefully by having progeny who would need schooling, I would keep these naysayers in work! My first school, Auburn GHS, was under-resourced – there were few textbooks or even collections of novels – it certainly encouraged creativity in the classroom! The ladies in the office might type up a worksheet for you, then print up the 40 or so copies needed on the Gestetner machine. The changing population of schools has been a great change – the wonderful diversity we now see in so many of our schools was hardly there in 1976. Auburn GHS was largely Anglo, with some students from Greece, Turkey, and the old Yugoslavia, fewer from Lebanon and Syria. Today 99% of the students there are from language backgrounds other than English.

I have had some marvellous times working with colleagues here at the Fort, and trying to bring about some changes and improvements; I am happy and thankful to know that English Enrichment, the Debating program, Year 7 literacy classes, the Connected Curricula, appear now to be a permanent part of the school life. (Pity about the knot garden – the soil was too hard for Year 7s with a shovel!) I am thrilled that the SLSO program, supporting our special gifted students has taken off, the positions filled with some brilliant and empathetic Fortians of yore. That my ten years of The Fortian magazine has now evolved into what it should be – a student-led production. That the whole school embraced our Shakespeare Day and saw Ros escorted in all her Elizabethan finery by John Bell to her throne! I have had the thrill of escorting, myself, students to Japan and the IMP to Eastern Europe, not to mention to the very many camps. I am happy that both the beautiful staircase and pressed metal ceiling in Wilkins were restored, that W16 is now a 90-seat lecture theatre and my beautiful classroom, W25 a break-out space. I am pleased that I was able to undertake the 2017 School Validation, writing about the Fort in 30,000 words, and I am pleased to be a member of the Fort Street Foundation.

During the forty years of my career there have been for me seven female principals, three males! I have really had the experience of many kinds of school, especially if I factor in my own children as well: Single sex selective, co-ed selective, co-ed and single sex comprehensive, private girls, independent, privileged, independent boys, private performing arts, Catholic, the Conservatorium, a two-teacher primary; city, regional and rural schools. It’s been a joy to work at them all, or to be closely involved in some way – but with all honesty I can say that some of my happiest times, (and some of my most difficult, I will not pretend!) have been here at Fort Street. Twelve years is not a long time – when you look around at our teaching cohort, I might still be considered a newbie – but why would one want to be anywhere else? I have had a brilliant, wonderful English faculty, many of whom will remain lifelong friends; I have worked with, as Deputy Principal, beautiful and compassionate Year Advisers and school counsellors; this is the most delightful and supportive SASS and IT staff anywhere; I have had the privilege of working with a fabulous executive, and several senior executive teams, especially the latest iteration, with whom it has been a pleasure to work and plan.

A school is of course the people who fill it – staff, students, parents. Without doubt, Fort Street is peopled with an extraordinarily delightful group of young people, who have genuine, original thoughts and ideas, which they seem to really want to share with you. Coupled with the parents, who are so engaged with their children and their teachers, and are so warm and generous, Fort Street must be one of the most glorious places to work.
I leave with much sadness, indeed trepidation, to start a new phase of my life which, I can only hope, will be half as fruitful, fulfilling, fabulous and rewarding as this my time at the Fort. There has indeed been some wisdom, much foolishness. In terms of a career, I consider my time at the Fort, to have been the very best of times. Thank you to all of those who have made it thus.

Catriona Arcamone

Frohe Weihnachten!

Year 10 and 11 German classes got in the festive spirit by making and decorating gingerbread houses, a Christmas tradition in German-speaking countries.

Second Hand Uniform Stall

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Introducing Vlada – National Figure Skater

My name is Vlada and I’m a Year 9 student and a national figure skater. I’m writing this article to give you a recount of my recent trip to Europe and share my amazing, albeit challenging, experience travelling overseas during Covid 19.

I intended to undertake this trip last year, but that failed miserably after the resurgence of Covid 19. This year, after qualifying for the Junior Grand Prix again, we decided that I couldn’t let the same opportunity go. This decision was made right before the second Sydney lockdown, around June/July 2021, so I hadn’t expected to be off the ice for over three months before competing. However, planning still continued and as did training, only now off the ice. After around 3 months of eagerness and excitement, off I flew, on September the 3rd, leaving behind my family and friends.

I’d like to pause here and take a moment to thank some people. First of all, the biggest thanks to my parents. Without them, I never would’ve even stood in skates, let alone travel across the world, representing my country. Secondly, I’d like to thank my amazing coach, who took great care of me while I was away and who is working hard with me through my failures and successes. Thirdly, I would like to thank FSHS for adjusting to my spontaneous trip and allowing me this opportunity. Finally, I’d like to thank all of my friends for their endless support and encouragement, as sometimes you’re the reason I want to get up at 4:30 am to skate in a freezing ice rink.

Anyway, on we go. The first few flights to Budapest, Hungary were definitely the most stressful and energy consuming. The cancellation of flights, mixed with jet lag, a blocked card and a lack of taxi drivers willing to drive us across the country definitely isn’t a nice blend. But we made it to our new home safe and sound, slightly ruffled by the past events, but with a positive outlook on what was to come. I spent a month in Budapest, struggling to get used to the ice in time for my first competition, but somehow I managed. First up was the competition that was the base of the entire trip, Junior Grand Prix in Linz, Austria. My skates weren’t the best, but they were definitely a good start to another three competitions coming straight after. This was one of my most valuable experiences, as I met so many amazing skaters from all around the world, starting from the USA, all the way to Russia. Attending such a prestigious competition gave me motivation to work even harder and I am so grateful that such an event had my name written on the entry list.

Next up was Budapest Trophy, a competition located in the very rink I had trained in for the past month. My skates were gradually getting more consistent and by this point I had achieved the qualifying scores for both the short and the free program for Junior World Championships (which will be held next year, if not postponed or cancelled). A moment I remember from this particular competition, was the opportunity to meet and watch Anna Scherbakova, the World Champion, perform her beautiful programs. As one of my figure skating idols, it was incredible to watch such an amazing skater live in the grandstands. Budapest Trophy was a success and off I ventured to France for the third competition of the journey.

Nice, France was definitely my favourite location in Europe as a tourist. The ice rink had a huge window on one entire half of the venue, with a spectacular view across the city. France was also my favourite competition to participate in. My nerves were under control and I had two solid skates. One day I wish to visit Nice again, for there is still lots left to explore and learn.

Finally, I reached my final destination, Riga, Latvia, where I presented my final programs. It was around this time that I began to truly miss home and it became a matter of getting on my flight as soon as possible rather than focusing on my final performance. Either way, I successfully completed my final competition and sat exhilarated on my final flight with an ending destination of Sydney.

In terms of Covid 19, as time passed by, flights and travel became a lot easier, as the frequent testing and constant masks became the norm. Flying became more promising, as we seemed to actually reach our seats in the plane for the rest of our flights. Covid 19 has definitely been affecting the skating community, just as much as everyone else, so to be able to accomplish such things during this time is a true achievement.

Now, back at home, I continue to work and look forward to what’s to come. I take my trip as something to cherish, value, and remember. It was an eye-opener to what hard work can return to you.

Vlada Vasiliev