Principal’s Report

Dear Fortians, Parents and Carers,

Term 2 commenced with a professional learning day for staff focussing on effective feedback and new syllabus programming and implementation. This comprised a presentation and workshops for all staff on reframing feedback. The sessions were aimed at encouraging teachers to involve students more deeply in the learning process as well as the product of learning. The science faculty at Fort Street hosted a professional learning opportunity for science teachers from other High Schools to share resources and to workshop the implementation of new senior syllabi in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth and Environmental Science.

On the first day of the term for students, the whole school participated in an ANZAC Assembly. Our guest speaker Commodore Malcolm Wise, OAM of the Royal Australian Navy was well received by students and staff. Presentations were also delivered by Westley Lo, Max Collingwood and Mackenzie Wise of Year 11. The Ode was read by Daniel Holland (Year 9) and the Last Post and Reveille performed by Jonathan Kelley (Year 11).

The school has been successful in its application for the NSW Government Student Wellbeing Support Program. This is a 3 year program to assist schools working in partnership with their local community through additional funding support for a student wellbeing support officer to support school wellbeing initiatives in the school.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the staff who organised and attended both the Year 12 Geography Barrier Reef excursion (Ms Jenkyn and Ms Cameron) and the Year 10 Silver Duke of Edinburgh Camp to Barrington Tops (Mr de Bres, Ms Reid, Mr O’Neill, Ms Jerrems, Ms Fluitsma and Ms Flynn. The students who attended either one of these multiple night excursions had an unforgettable experience and it is wonderful to have staff willing to give up their own personal and family time to provide such quality experiences for our students.

Congratulations to Lucy Bailey (Yr 12) and Max Collingwood (Yr 11) who were both successful at the local finals of the Plain English Speaking Awards competition and will now compete at the Regional Finals on 23 May.

Congratulations to Ms Jenny Xu (Social Science and English teacher) for being the first recipient of the new ‘Fort Street Staff Member of the Week’ award. I look forward to seeing who will be recognised by staff on Monday next week.

Staff Member of the Week – Jenny Xu

Congratulations Jenny Xu!

Jenny is an enthusiastic and supportive colleague who regularly volunteers to attend camps, excursions, participates and runs extra programs such as Connected Curricula, covers her colleagues’ classes and stays behind for school events. Jenny has been extremely helpful to the school providing her services as an interpreter for parents for whom English is not their first language.

One of the current goals of the DoE 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, is that ‘Every student is known, valued and cared for in our schools’. Jenny is a particularly caring teacher who goes out of her way to make strong connections with the students at Fort Street High School whether or not she is their teacher or Year Adviser.

Jenny has the honour of selecting the next recipient for ‘teacher of the week’ and will present the trophy to this person at our Week 3 Monday morning staff meeting.

(Rule: recipients cannot select the next teacher of the week from their own faculty)

Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award Expedition

On Saturday the 6th of April, on a very cold morning, five Year 11 students and fourteen Year 12 students accompanied by Ms Flynn arrived at various times at both Central and Strathfield station. Armed with the 18kg packs on their backs, we boarded the westbound train on our way towards the Blue Mountains for our Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s expedition. We travelled a few hours to Wentworth Falls station where as a hearty goodbye to civilisation, we all purchased some food from the few local shops.

After borrowing most of the instructors’ equipment, we dived straight into planning our 4 day route, taking into account elevation, fatigue, walking speed, and most importantly, breaks. Over the next four days, the group’s determination, patience and cohesion was tested. The gruelling walks of up to 11 hours a day was challenging. Our lovely guides from Outdoor Education group took it upon themselves to plan our routes, later informing us that they decided to unnecessarily add 30kms because, why not right?

The 4 days were jam-packed with groans, laughs and quite a few rounds of 20 questions. Ms Flynn’s shoe broke, which was eventful, a fellow adventurer lost his car keys and tried to break his car open with a rock and a Year 11 student dropped his toothbrush into a river. Thankfully we didn’t require the use of our “poop-tubes,” so to speak. The only way to describe this experience is, unforgettable. While the Year 12’s may have finished both expeditions, the Year 11s are extremely excited as for what comes next.

Bhuvan Senthil and Edmund Derwent

Young Archies Honorable Mention

Congratulations to Year 8 student Esther Alex who has received an Honorable Mention in the 2019 Young Archies for her portrait of her classmate and friend Elisabeth.  Esther’s entry can be viewed here.

There were over 2100 entries in this seventh Young Archie competition.

The ten finalists from each age category are displayed at the Art Gallery of NSW and the honourable mentions at the SH Ervin Gallery. Winners will be announced on 10 August 2019.

The competition was judged by the Gallery’s community engagement manager and the guest judge – artist Marikit Santiago, herself an Archibald Prize finalist in 2016.

The Young Archie competition is supported by presenting partner ANZ and S&S Creative.

CHS Diving

Congratulations to Riki Leamon (Year 11) who represented Fort Street High School at the CHS diving championships on 10 April at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

Riki placed  5th in the 16 years girls’ springboard competition and, for the first time, competed in a teams synchronised diving event.

NSWCHS Swimming Carnival

The following boys formed our 6x50m freestyle relay team and placed second at the CHS State Carnival. These boys will now compete at the NSW All Schools meet on Monday, 13 May. Well done to;

Christopher Truong (Y7), Alexander Howdin (Y8), Jerry Zhou (Y9), Alexander Thompson (Y10), Jack Coleman (Y10), Artem Sydorenko (Y11)​

The following students also had exceptional individual results;

Christopher Truong – 4th in U12s 100m Breaststroke

Alexander Howdin – 6th in U13s 100m Backstroke and 8th in U13s 100m Freestyle.

Alexander Thompson – 2nd U15-16s 400m Individual Medley, 2nd U15s 100m Backstroke, 2nd U15s 100m Butterfly, 3rd U15-16s 200 Individual Medley​

School Cross Country Carnival

The FSHS Cross Country carnival took place in April at Petersham Park.

House Points for the carnival are as follows;

Kennedy – 206
Mawson – 180
Barton – 173
Preston – 148

Congratulations to Kennedy!

The top 8 runners for the U12, U13, U14 and U15 divisions and the top 6 runners for the U16, U17 and U18 divisions have qualified to represent the school at the Northern Suburbs Zone Cross Country Carnival which is to be held at Macquarie University on Wednesday, 29 May.

Well done to the following students who have qualified:

Natalia Mestre, Lucie Atkinbol, Karina Bu, Katherine Lee, Joselin Pradhan, Juliana Nguyen, Elora Burn, Sofie Andersen, Alyssa Khaw, Anne-Sophie Hegi, Esther Alex, Jisu Song, Laua Dong, Charlotte Christie, Noa Dechter, Jasmine Loh, Ella Murphy, Santana Krishnan-Iyer, Maia Vincent, Soraya Newlyn, Emma Zhao, Rebecca Wong, Bella Walker, Abbie Sen, Francesca Murphy, Jessica Trang, Maya Allfrey, GiGi Chan, Tilly Kearnes, Karen Luo, Jennifer Dang, Erica Liu, Emily Grimes, Steffany Cho, Marley Donald, Ella Easton, Stella Sharwood, Eleanor McLeod, Sabine Chin-Lowe, Carmen Wen, Kaitlyn Truong, Jessica Huong, Veronica Ly, Samuel Hubbord, Oskar Deuche, Christopher Truong, Keenan Saville Scott, Angus Yau, Finn Hetherington, Jeffrey Yu, Abraham Joseph, Calan O’Dwyer, Arlo Thawaites, Kavin Maran, Asher Howes, Jimmy Murphy, Tom Easton, Vithushan Srimurugakumar, Finn Williams, Casper Khoo, Takumi Foster, Louis Arnold, Benjamin Shadily, Owen Chin, Jack Trimmer, Lucas Liu, Justin Ou, Yoonjae Lee, Matthew Brewster, Oliver Simmonds, Gabriel Peyrachon, John Papathanasiou, Austen Koit, Pranav Rao, Luke Noorbergen, Tomo Tarrant, Ilha Jung, Felix Atkins-Bolton, Jack Coleman, Sebastian Spina, Jason Hu, Rory Stewart, Leon Stokes, Nikita Ukladchikov, Kevin Zhe, Elton Zhou, Anthony Kha, Jillian Williams-Kelly, Harrison Pritchard, Aidan Elwig-Pollock, Alan Ooi and Max Bennett.

Careers News – HSC Timetables

NESA has released students’ personalised HSC timetables to all Year 12 students. Students – and parents – are encouraged to check these timetables now to ensure that all exams listed are correct. Year 12 students should be regularly checking their Students Online portal to receive notifications from NESA. Any students experiencing issues accessing their Students Online account should see Ms Salisbury in the Careers Office now.

Every year the Careers Adviser hosts a series of lunchtime presentations for Year 12 by all the major Sydney universities. The series of presentations also includes representatives from scholarship and cadetship programs and from gap-year organisations. All students are encouraged to attend all presentations, as it is helpful at this stage of the year to keep an open mind about all possible future directions. Presentations take place in W1 every Thursday lunchtime of Term 2. Bring lunch, bring friends, bring an open mind!

Australian Youth Orchestra Young Symphonist – Emily Miers

Emily Miers, Year 11 recently participated in the Australian Youth Orchestra Young Symphonist program as principal horn. This was Emily’s second year of the program, which involved a week-long residential program attending tutorials and rehearsals, culminating in a wonderful concert at Deakin Edge, in Melbourne’s famous Federation Square.

AYO Young Symphonists offers the opportunity for the best young musicians from around Australia to participate in an intensive week of music-making. This program is designed specifically for 12–17 year olds who aim to achieve excellence in highly-challenging orchestral repertoire, and opens the door to endless possibilities available to young musicians looking to experience the joy of symphonic music.

Instrumental Music Program

Basement Update
A complete refurbishment of the basement was undertaken by Public Works in the last holidays. This involved a complete dehumidification and mould treatment, and new flooring, painting, carpets, ceilings, and shelving. It is hoped that it will all be finished by the end of Week 3. In the meantime, and until advised otherwise, students should keep using KS1 for instrument storage.

Save the Date!
Mid-Year IMP Concert Friday 28 June
5:30pm Dinner, 7pm Show
Look out for catering emails soon about how you can contribute.

2019 Fanfare Competition

Call for Entries!

Submissions are now open for the 2019 Fanfare Competition for young people aged 12-21 years to compose a short 30 second work. Now in its sixth year, the Fanfares are broadcast annually to 100,000 visitors attending events at our partnering venues around Australia!

The selected eight young people work with professional mentors and have their work recorded by the talented musicians at the Australian Youth Orchestra.

Need help getting started? Free resources are online

Need inspiration? Listen to past winners

Give it a go – it’s fun! Enter online by 5pm, Monday 3 June 2019 

ENTER ONLINE
And for IMP parents only:

Love to sing? Have a low voice? Jealous of your kid having fun in the IMP? Well, we have the choir for you! Basses particularly required.

Alex Pringle’s adult choir, Singers Rechoired, is looking for new members.

Rehearses in Drummoyne weekly during terms.

Contact Kate @ drummoynechoir@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/pg/singersrechoired

P&C

May General Meeting 8th May 2019

The May general meeting of the P&C was held last Wednesday and was preceded by a presentation by Joel Morrison, Deputy Principal, on gifted education. Thanks to Joel for an interesting talk about the particular characteristics and needs of gifted students and how the school works toward meeting these needs and helping our children flourish.

The major outcome from the May meeting was to pass a motion to spend up to $100 000 to convert the current tennis courts into futsal courts, as per the request of students and staff. The school will now proceed with a working party to determine the best approach and submit this proposal to Assets at DOE for approval.

Focus Items 2019 – focus items for the remainder of 2019 are as follows:

June: Head Teacher CAPA (Creative & Performing Arts) C. Mattick

August: Head Teacher Maths (S. Lam) Newly Appointed.
September: Student Wellbeing (including technology management)
December: Head Teacher English (N. Melser)

Entertainment Books 

Help raise money for Fort Street by buying an Entertainment Book.  Packed with discounts for dining, travel, entertainment and retail, it’s a great present for family, friends or yourself!

Fort Street High School Entertainment Book

Second Hand Uniform Stall
The P&C’s second hand uniform stall runs once per term before school from 7.45-8.45 am in front of the school office. This year’s dates for your diary are:

Term 3: 7 August

Term 4: 23 October

Parents and students are welcome to come and grab a bargain. Price guide: shirts, skirts, shorts, IMP (music program) and sports uniform items all $5 each, jumpers $20, trousers $10, winter jackets $40. Cash only, please bring your small change, condition of clothes as found, no change rooms, no refunds. The second hand uniform stall relies on uniform donations from the school community. You can do your bit to recycle our uniforms and save landfill. If you have clean washed uniforms to donate, please take them to the school library and they will be placed in the donations bin. All proceeds to your P&C. If you are a parent who would like to volunteer on the stall please contact Sally at mceastonland@gmail.com. Thank you to everyone who has donated and to our volunteers, our front office and library staff for supporting the stall.

P&C General Meeting Dates for 2019

Term 2:
8th May 2019
12th June 2019

Term 3:
14th August 2019
11th September 2019

Term 4:
13th November 2019 (AGM)
11th December 2019

As with all our activities we welcome your feedback and contributions so please feel free to contact us at any time.

Senior Drama Production 5 June

The Senior Drama Company will present Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses on Wednesday 5 June. This play explores myths and how we use these to make sense and meaning in the world. This beautiful play is being refined by student director Lennie Neagle-Millar and is shaping up to be a wonderful production.

The Senior Drama Production is one of the schools important community building events and I would like to invite all families and friends of the school to come along and enjoy an entertaining night of theatre.

Theatresports Schools Challenge

Come and be entertained by our fantastic Theatresports teams at two Theatresports evenings presented by Impro Australia:

Senior teams will compete at PLC Croydon on Wednesday 15 May.  Details here:  Senior Theatresports

Intermediate teams will compete at Ashfield Boys’ High School on Wednesday 22 May.  Details here: Intermediate theatresports

From the Archives

We continue our series of looking back at some of our principals from the past. In this edition we’ll look at Morris’ and Horan’s research of Fort Street’s first Headmistress.

As early as 1854, at Fort Street Model School, upper classes were receiving an education which brought them close to University levels of matriculation. For many years the School had been preparing pupils for entrance to the University, but it was not until the new High School Syllabus was introduced in 1911 that this became official Council of Education policy. As a result, the boys and girls at Fort Street gained separate identities under two Principals, one for the boys, Alexander Kilgour, and one for the girls, Ada Partridge.
Alexander Kilgour was appointed Headmaster of Fort Street Model School in 1905. His management, direction and control extended over infants, primary and secondary education, though Ada Partridge was in charge of the girls. Ada Partridge herself was a Fortian, having first attended the School in 1876. Her appointment as first Headmistress of girls at the Model School in 1895 led to an association with the School extending over twenty-five years with a high standard of excellence.
By the time Ada Partridge arrived the School had an enrolment of 2,000. With 1,000 boys, 650 girls and 350 infants, it is not surprising that general renovations took place at increasingly shorter intervals. The degree of crowding in the Girls’ Department alone, must have given the teachers a constant headache. The Departmental Research Office reports: “In 1899 the Girls’ Department was composed of a main room, two classrooms and a room reserved solely for sewing.”
At the time of her retirement in 1920 the Sydney press was to say… “Ada Partridge is a shining example of the worth of the system of education in this State. Ada Partridge was temperamentally a model headmistress, for together with her genius for organisation, her indefatigable energy, her tact, she combined the strongest sense of British fair play — justice tempered with mercy. So widespread was her reputation for calm judgement that often families in the neighbourhood of the school would come to her to arbitrate in the matter of family differences. Recalcitrant daughters and obstinate parents have often thanked her for her kindly advice in the old days, when the district contiguous to the school supplied a greater percentage of the pupils.”
In Ada Partridge’s message shortly after her retirement she said… “I should like, girls, to remind you that your present education will be a preparation for the great school of life. If you wish to become honourable, worthy members of society, useful to others, happy in yourselves, and to leave the world a little better because you had lived in it, then you must develop not only mentally and physically, but morally. Education also means self-control, development of tact and kindliness, cultivation of good habits, humanity. You will soon enough be called upon to take your place in the world, and you must endeavour to take it bravely, successfully and happily. I need scarcely say that I should always be pleased to hear of the happiness and successes of my dear girls.”

Archivist – Iain Wallace