A message from the new principal

I am delighted to have been appointed as Principal at Fort Street High School. It has been an absolute pleasure getting to know the staff and some of the students and parents over the past 3 weeks. I am looking forward to getting to know many more students throughout the term.
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Karen Di Stefano for being such an outstanding leader and for her willingness to give so much time to me during my transition to the school. I would also like to thank the staff for their support, and in particular to the senior executive team Joel Morrison, Catriona Arcamone and Rebecca Cameron who have been extremely supportive and welcoming.

I have spent the last 15 years of my teaching career at Rose Bay Secondary College a partially selective co-educational public high school in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. I have also taught at Strathfield South High School, Carlingford High School and the Islington CEC a special education school in London. I am excited and looking forward to the incredible responsibility of leading Fort Street High School into the future.
I am committed to continuing the tradition of academic excellence at Fort Street High School and to ensuring that our school is a place where every student enjoys learning and is encouraged to reach their full potential. I will continue to foster an environment where intelligent young men and women can express their individuality and develop a strong sense of belonging and a commitment to social justice.

It will be a privilege to work with the wider community, parents, P&C, the Fort Street Foundation, the School Council and the Fortians Union to maintain the important traditions of the school and also to ensure that Fort Street High School is a leader in education.

Juliette McMurray
Principal

Principal’s Report

Term 3 is well underway and much has been happening in the past 3 weeks at the Fort.
I am hoping to start the recruitment process this term for a substantive Deputy Principal to replace Karen Di Stefano and a Head Teacher Maths to replace Phillip Niven. There will be some classroom positions also appointed this term or in Term 4.
Year 12 have completed Trial HSC examinations and have only 7 weeks remaining of their schooling. They are expected at school each day as their teachers cover the last topics of the syllabuses and prepare them for their HSC exams. It was heart-warming to read the many notes and messages of good wishes and support to the year 12 students that appeared in multi-colours opposite the school hall at the beginning of the trial exams, an initiative of the SRC this year.

Year 10 subject selection evening took place in week 1 followed by individual meetings with every Year 10 student in week 2. Students have now made their subject choices for the senior years and the process of timetabling for 2019 will commence.
All staff in the wellbeing team participated in a full day conference on Wednesday August 8. The team participated in planning and professional dialogue as well as engaging with a number of external providers about digital nutrition and also teenage mental health issues. This conference will be followed up by a review over the next 4 weeks of the Fort Street wellbeing roadmap and each of the programs and policies that wellbeing encompasses.

I have met twice already with the student representative council and as a result of another new initiative this term ‘feedback Friday’, in which students can write suggestions to the SRC during year meetings, the doors and locks to some of the cubicles in the boys toilets which were not operational have now been repaired.
Painting will soon commence on all the external existing painted surfaces of the Wilkins building and in some of the internal passageways. Every effort will be taken to cause minimal disruption to students and staff during this period.

Congratulations to:
Evalena Chilas (Yr 12) who has been selected to receive a 2018 John Lincoln Youth Community Service Award, which is presented to NSW senior High School students who have been nominated for their exemplary service to their communities. The Award is conducted annually by the NSW branch of the Order of Australia Association. Evalena will be presented with this award at a ceremony at NSW Government House in September.

Simon Tang (Yr 12), Johnny Quan (Yr 12) and Ilma Khan (Yr 12) aka ‘Train Squad’ entered the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute competition ‘CHOOSEMATHS’ in which they had to create a video to promote mathematics to the future generations, helping them to see and enjoy the beauty and importance of mathematics. The team has been invited to an awards ceremony in Melbourne that will be hosted by Bernie Hobbs from ABC TV’s The New Inventors to receive one of only ten awards. The students video can be viewed in this Mercurius and on the school website.

Betty Chen (Yr 11) and Katherine Nguyen (Yr 11) recently participated in the ‘2018 Secretary for a day’ program. This 2.5 day program provided them with the opportunity to shadow senior education officers from the NSW Department of Education and to actively engage in discussions about contemporary education topics.

Danielle Villafaña (Yr 9) was successful in the Public Speaking Regional finals. Her topic was on the trends of immigration in Selective High Schools.

Alana Hodzic (Yr 10) during her work experience with the ACCC recently produced a summary ASIC’s (82 page) investigation into credit card lending and problematic consumer debt. She presented to approximately 20 employees who subsequently mistook Alana for a full time employee or university intern. Alana has since reported back to the Year 10 meeting.

Damian Feng (Yr 12), Kayla Chan (Yr 10), Eric Ly (Yr 12), Richard Ly (Yr 12), Angelina Lee (Yr 10), Richard Trang (Yr 12) and Edmond Feng (Yr 12) competed in the Youth National Ultimate Frisbee Championships in Adelaide during the holidays. They were extremely successful and staff and students enjoyed watching highlights of their games at the last school assembly.

Yerin Kim (Yr 11) has is representing Australia at the International Players Tournament in Canada, part of the Maple Leaf Junior Tour. We wish her the best of luck.

Once again can I thank all the students, parents and staff of this wonderful school community for the warm welcome that I have received that has made settling into this school such a lovely experience. I look forward to reporting on a much more frequent basis the latest activities, events and achievements at the Fort.

Juliette McMurray
Principal

CPR Heart For Life

In an out of hospital cardiac arrest, every second counts. If performed immediately, CPR can improve a person’s chance of survival.  In Australia, survival rate from an out of hospital cardiac arrest is less than 10%.  In contrast Seattle has a cardiac arrest survival rate that is 60% due to many different initiatives including compulsory CPR training in schools. Empowering all youth with CPR and AED training in school will dramatically increase the number of first responders in communities each year and save lives.

CPR Heart For Life is co-founded by Emergency Specialist Dr Juan Chiang and Dr Lai Heng Foong. Our group consist of enthusiastic doctors, nurses and paramedics who volunteer their free time to teach school students Hands-Only CPR and AED training.   So far we have 140 members/instructors and we have taught more than 180 students, with a few more booked in the next few months.

Our aim is to engage with schools around Sydney to provide free Hands-Only CPR and AED training workshop to school students.

Dr Lai Heng Foong
Emergency Specialist and Fort Street parent

Montezuma Day

Mr de Bres’ Year 8 History 1 class have been studying the Spanish Conquest of the Americas.  Inspired by Montezuma’s famous headdress which is currently on display in Vienna’s Museum of Ethnology, the students created their own Aztec headdresses and held a Montezuma Day. They wore their headdresses, sipped freshly made hot chocolate and feasted on corn chips and salsa sauce – all tasty Aztec culinary inventions.

Special thanks to the organising committee who ensured this event was a great success.

Mr de Bres
History Faculty

Language Perfect Success

Language classes at Fort Street High School are often engaged in accessing information, learning activities, exercises, games, quizzes and tests online via the learning platform Language Perfect. We have been able to subscribe to this program which also stages competitions between schools around the globe. Recently the school received impressive award certificates for students who excelled in those challenges. Of note is Sarah Boge in Year 10 French who scored in the top 1% of 350,000 competitors in the World Championships, then in the top 0.2% of 20,000 competitors in the Humanities Championships.

Mark Backhouse
HT Languages

AMCI Maths video

Congratulations to Simon, Ilma and Johnny who are finalists in the senior category of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute maths video competition. Good luck in Melbourne on Friday 7 September at the presentation ceremony. Have a look at their video here:

NSW Titration Competition

Eight teams made up of Year 12 and 11 Chemistry students, participated in the NSW Titration competition that was held at Sydney University in June. The competition involves working out the concentration of an acid. From the 100 teams that participated in the competition, three teams from Fort Street, were awarded first, second and third place, an excellent effort. It was an absolute pleasure beating the James Ruse teams.
From the eight teams Alan Vien and Michelle Cheung received a perfect score.

The students in the teams that were awarded:

1st place:     Vincent CHEN, Alan VIEN and Sean YAO
2nd place:    ​Liam VO, Julian VAN GERWEN and Richard ZHANG and
3rd place:    Grace CHEN, Vivian JIN and Dalena LY

These three teams will go on to participate at the next stage which is at the National level, at the University of New South Wales in early September. We wish them the best of luck. Finally we would like to thank all the students that gave up their time for their participation and preparation for the competition.

Theo Leondios and Amrit Prasad

UNSW School Band Festival Success

​Congratulations to the Training Band and the Concert band who performed at the NSW School Band Festival on Sunday 29 July at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The ensembles played incredibly well, and both recieved Gold awards. Well done to all the players, and thanks to parents for helping their children get to the city on Sunday.

Sports News

Relays in the Fort St culture has always been an exciting event to watch and participate in at the end of our school, zone and regional athletics carnivals. This year I competed in the 17+ age group with Alan Vien, Adam Stuart and Damian Feng at the zone carnival, being the first time together since I’m a year older, a day we’ve been waiting to come for the past few years. While we had success in our own age groups in previous years by consistently making regionals, we were by no means ever at a full-strength team of sprinters until this year. We clocked in at a 47.10 initially, however due to an error with the camera work, we had to do a re-run, shaving a few more milliseconds off to reach 47.02. We aim to improve upon this time and hopefully make it to state for the first time at the beginning of Term 3.

Being the oldest year group at the carnival, it was encouraging to see juniors enjoy participating and cheering fellow Fortians on whether they know them or not and keeping involvement during the whole day. I would highly recommend them to continue this throughout the years, both working hard in individual events and having fun in team events.

Edmund Feng
Year 12

From the Archives

Memories from David Tunley

David Tunley was the music teacher at Fort Street Boys High from 1953-1957. He recently sent me this email recalling his time at our school. With his permission, here are some of his memories…
“My five years on the teaching staff was at a time when the school was trying to recapture its earlier reputation of being the outstanding school in Sydney. The excellent headmaster Mr Graham Shaw (who arrived at Fort Street on same day as me) had been chosen to help restore its great status. Why I was chosen to develop the musical side I will never know. I had just graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium and the Sydney Teachers’ College and had no track record as a school teacher at all. All I had was a driving ambition to do well and justify the trust that the Education Department had placed in me. Mind you I couldn’t have done worse than my very elderly predecessor who, judging by the chewed up blotting paper on the music-room ceiling, must have given up all hope of establishing class-discipline.  The anxiety I felt on my first day at the school was  lightened by a conversation with Mr Shaw who told me of his love of music by Bach and by Beethoven and then offered to re-construct the sound system which by then reached had its end-of-life.  What an incentive for the ‘new boy’!
Music at that time at Fort Street was not taken seriously and to build up a choir seemed a Herculean. However, I felt sure that if I could entice a few prefects and sporting types to sing with the group this might – in the famous French phrase – ‘encourager les autres.  ‘Les ‘autres’   included a senior boy (Jon Henricks) who even then was swimming his way to the Olympics and who sang a few times in the choir. Need I say more! By the time I left the school choir numbered more than a hundred boys.
It took a couple of years for Music at Fort Street to develop and I was instructed to also teach Maths (fortunately I had won a Maths prize at school) and a subject I had never heard of: Social Studies. My task was to take one of the lower classes and discuss Mesopotamia – the ‘land between two rivers’. To give my lesson some credulity I practised drawing a map on the blackboard showing the positions of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Thus, imagine my horror when the class had left the room to discover that I had placed the two rivers the wrong way around! Expecting instant dismissal I rushed around to the Social Sciences master, and – almost in tears – described my appalling mistake. To my unbelieving eyes he roared with laughter and said ‘Don’t for a moment imagined that by tomorrow any of the students will remember a single word of your lesson!!’  None of the lecturers at the Sydney Teachers’ College had ever mentioned such a thing – more’s the pity,
Because the State Education Department had paid for my year at the College I was bound to it for five years. I had decided at the beginning that I would finish school teaching at the end of that time and so in December 1958 resigned from Fort Street after five wonderfully happy years there. I had been preparing for a university position and during the time at Fort Street applied to sit for the examinations for a Bachelor of Music from Durham University which was the only university that offered an external degree. During the last few month of my time in Sydney I received news that I had gained the degree. So the opportunity for a university career came my way. Yet I have never forgotten my time at that fine school and over the years have kept in touch with quite a few ex-students, one of the real pleasures of teaching. I have indeed been so lucky.”

Iain Wallace
School Archivist

Coming Up at Fort Street

August
12-18   Japanese students arrive
12        Raise mentoring
13        Biology Olympiad
13        Year 12 Picnic
13        Science Fair
14        English Extension incursion
15        Physics Olympiad
15        Japanese excursion
16        Year 9 English excursion
16        Open Evening
17        1968 Fortians reunion
17        Assembly
17        Year 8 to Year 9 subject selection
17        Robotics Competition preparation day
20        Year 11 to 12 subject selection
20        Raise mentoring
21        Robotics excursion
22        Year 11/12 Meet the Music
22        HSC CAPA Showcase
23        HSC CAPA Showcase
23-28   Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award
24        SRC Elections
24        Horn students masterclass

Wear It Purple

Details of the Inner West Police and Community Wear It Purple Day on 31 August can be found here:

Wear It Purple Day

P&C News

Languages Faculty Sister Schools and Languages at Fort Street
At the last P&C meeting we were treated to a presentation from Ken Gillespie and Mark Backhouse about the activities within the Languages Faculty. Ken explained the long relationship Fort Street has with teaching Japanese (beginning prior to WWII) and continuing since, as well as with our sister school in Japan. This relationship began when Neville Wran was contacted by the Japanese school and approached his alma mater Fort Street to be their sister school. Now every second year our students go to Japan and stay with a family and attend the school and the alternate year the students from Japan do the same here. The 2018 Japanese students will be arriving on Friday 10th August and staying for the week with a Goodbye BBQ being held at school on Friday 17th  August.

Mark Backhouse, Head Teacher, Languages, introduced us to the variety of languages taught at Fort Street; the review of the faculty last year, one finding being that learning languages was felt to help students develop a deeper knowledge of grammar and language structures; the opportunities being explored for more relationships with schools in relevant countries and some changes to the curriculum that will be introduced next year. These include differentiated curriculum (already occurring at Fort St) and more immersion learning. Thank you to Ken and Mark for the great presentation.

Next Meeting will be on Wednesday 12 September in the Library at 6.30pm
The school counsellors will be attending to present about mental health and young people and how school counsellors and parents can support their children.
All parents are welcome to attend the Focus Item and/or the General meeting which follows at 7.30pm. We hope to see you there.

Amanda Elliott-Brennan
P&C President

Second Hand Uniform Stall

Second Hand Uniform Stall: Term 4 Wednesday October 24th 7:45-8:45 am
The second hand uniform stall runs before school (7.45-8.45 am) on the second Wednesday of each term outside the front office. Parents and students are welcome to attend and pick up some bargain spare items. The stall is cash only (please bring small change if possible), sizes and condition as found, no change rooms, no refunds or exchanges. Price guide: shirts/shorts/IMP items/ties/sports uniform tops/shorts $5, trousers/skirts $10, jumpers $20, winter jackets $40, some uniform shop seconds at half price as marked. All proceeds go back to the P&C

The second hand uniform stall saves landfill by providing a way of recycling uniforms within the school. If you have second hand uniforms to donate, please take them to the library front desk. Thank you!

Volunteers are always welcome to help out – contact Sally@mceastonland@gmail.com