Principals Report

Dear Fortians, Parents and Guardians,

Welcome back to Term 3, I hope that our Fortians and teaching staff were able to have a good mid-year break in preparation for the second half of the school year. On Friday 21 July a successful NAIDOC Assembly was held for the entire school and workshops were run by the SRC for Years 7 -10. Despite the guest speaker pulling out the day before, Mr Chapman put together a powerful and memorable assembly.  I would also like to acknowledge Mr O’Neill and the SRC, in particular, Kalanie P for putting the workshops together and facilitating these. I am proud of what the school achieved on the day and the connections made with our Indigenous heritage.

I am very much looking forward to the school musical production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee which will be performed in the school hall on Thursday August 10 and Friday August 11 from 7pm. Information on how you can secure tickets will emailed out in the next few days. This will be an outstanding performance and is not to be missed.

Year 12 Trial HSC Exams are taking place this week and next week which will cause some disruptions to movement around the school. We appreciate all students respecting this time for Year 12 and keeping quiet around the hall and common room. Good luck to all Year 12, we know that their hard work and dedication to studies will pay off.

Year 8 Elective Choices for 2024/2025 are now due and Year 10 Preliminary and HSC subject choices for 2024/2025 are due in by Monday 31 July. Thank you to everyone for getting these choices in on time. The timetable committee will be working on this throughout the term to meet the most student preferences as possible, unfortunately not all students will receive their first, second and third preferences as not every course being offered may run and classes are also limited by size.

Congratulations:

Alexander H in Year 12 has accepted an offer for the 2024 Tuckwell Scholarship at The Australian National University (ANU). This year over 1200 applications were received for this scholarship. Alexander was one of only 49 invited to interview in Canberra in early July, where they impressed the selection panel and were offered one of 25 Tuckwell Scholarship for next year. This is a tremendous achievement and an amazing opportunity for Alex, congratulations.

At the final assembly for Semester One there were many outstanding student achievements to celebrate.

Debating – FSHS had a great start to the year with many teams progressing beyond their respective opening rounds. Year 11 progressed on to round 2 and unfortunately were eliminated. Year 12 had a successful three rounds and unfortunately were eliminated by a very strong Sydney Girls team. A special mention to Galileo Lima and Johnathon Bonnice for stepping up to support the Year 12 debating team during their assessment task period.

I would like to congratulate the following students from the Stage 6 Teams:

Year 12 Fort Street A Team – Rose K, Sebastian L, Ethan L, Yexuan Y and Dennis Y

Year 11 Fort Street B Team – Galileo L, Johnathon B, Aanya K and Auryn G

Whilst the seniors have wrapped up their year in the Premieres Debating Challenge, In the juniors, Year 7 have begun their Premieres’ Debating Challenge campaign with a strong Round one victory over Sydney Secondary College Balmain. Year 9 saw a very convincing win over Sydney Secondary College Leichhardt. Finally, Year 10 also had a convincing round one victory over Canterbury Girls High School. We wish all the Stage 4 and 5 debating teams the best of luck for the rest of Round 1.

Public Speaking – Divyan G (Year 8), Miranda L (Year 9) and Aanya K (Year 11) represented the school in the Rostrum Voice of Youth public speaking competition. Although she was did not advance to the next round, Aanya’s speech was singled out for praise due to its thought-provoking exploration of the implicit Eurocentrism of New South Wales’ public holiday calendar.

Rose K (Yr 12) competed in the local heat of the prestigious ‘Plain English’ public speaking competition at Granville Boys’ HS during the first week of May, presenting a fascinating speech about the ethical questions raised by the intersection of new technologies and human society.

Music – 20 Fortians represented Fort Street at the Sydney Eisteddfod last term in Chamber Choir. I would like to congratulate; In year 12 – Esther A, Harrison A, Alex H, Asher H, Aria K, Leonard K, Alyssa K, Thomas L and Benjamin S. In Year 11 – Sofie A, Andy B and Henry M. In Year 10 – Emma H, Edmund H, Jasper K, Anika S and Matthew W. In Year 9 – Ivy S and Matthew Y and in Year 8 Lucinda M.

On the second last Friday of Term 2 the Winter mid-year IMP concert was held, this was an absolutely fantastic event. The entire hall was packed to the rafters and the music pieces were quite stunning,  particularly interesting and unique. Congratulations to all our IMP participants.

Last term, six individual finalists performed their selected concerto with an orchestra, competing for prizes and opportunities in the prestigious annual NSW Secondary Schools Concerto Competition. The competition is open to secondary school pupils in years 7-12 at schools throughout NSW and the ACT, attracting close to 100 entrants, eager to compete for a coveted position in the Finals Concert. Clara M in Year 9 a celloist was one of these finalists. Clara won the junior section of the KPO concerto competition which is absolutely outstanding.

Sport – On Monday 5th June the CHS 15 Girls and Boys Basketball teams went on a road trip together to the Central Coast, to play their first-round knockout Basketball games.  The first game was the Girls team against Henry Kendall High School. As it turned out, our team were too much for the opposition to handle and we beat them convincingly 65-12! The second game of the day was the Boys team playing against Gorokan High School. Thank you to all the players for their commitment and effort.. Well done!

At the recent Regional Cross-Country Championships at Gosford – 35 Fort Street students participated. Calan O, Oscar B, Francis N and Chip H qualified for the State Cross Country Championships in July.

At the Zone CHS Athletics Carnival at Olympic Park last semester Victor F was age champion for the 12 year boys, Leon L broke the 200m 13 years boys record, Venus L broke the 13 years girls long jump record and Calan O broke the 800m & 1500m 17-19 years boys record. 29 Fortians participated in the regional athletics carnival this Monday.

Finally, in cricket Chris S has been selected for the Sydney North team to compete at CHS .

Congratulations to all of these students.

Upcoming Events:

Friday 28 July – Second Hand Uniform sale at lunchtime

Sunday 30 July – School Musical full dress and technical rehearsal

Monday 31 July – Junior School State Frisbee Championships

Thursday 3 and Friday 4 August – Year 8 Volleyball Tournament

Friday 4 August – CHS Knockout Girls Basketball and 15 Girls Basketball Round

Friday 4 August – Year 9 PDM Cockatoo Island Excursion

Monday 7 August – School Musical Preview

Thursday 10 and Friday 11 August – School Musical Performance 7pm – 10pm

Tuesday 15 August – Year 12 Careers Afternoon 1pm – 4pm in the Hall

Wednesday 16 August – Year 12 Drama and Music Showcase

Year 8 French breakfast

On the last Thursday of Term 2, 8F and 8T were invited into the delicious world of French cuisine and got to experience a traditional French breakfast.

Both classes had the opportunity to try a range of authentic French pastries, including croissants, pain au chocolat and fruit tarts, baguettes, cheeses (camembert and gruyere), jams, butters, and chocolate. We also had a giant pot of very rich chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) to help keep everyone warm and to dip our various breads and pastries into if we wanted. This was a great way to get practical experience trying the foods we had been learning about, to practise ordering food in French, to learn more about life in France and a valuable cultural experience.

Thank you to Le Coco Patisserie on Parramatta Road for providing such delicious pastries to us and to everyone’s support of this event.

Alexander Howdin wins Tuckwell Scholarship Award for 2024

We are very proud to announce that Year 12 student Alexander Howdin has been awarded a prestigious Tuckwell Scholarship.

There are only 25 students chosen each year from all around Australia, and students have to get through three rounds of the application process, including a full weekend of interviews and teamwork at ANU in Canberra during the July holidays.

Fort Street has an outstanding history of successful Tuckwell applicants.

Fortian Tuckwell scholars are:

Hannah Harmelin 2014 (Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of international Security Studies)

Eilish Salmon 2017 (Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics)

Cole Johnson 2019 (Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science, Psychology)

Max Collingwood 2021 (Flexible Double Law)

The Tuckwell Scholarship is described as “the most transformational undergraduate scholarship program in Australia” and is one of the most lucrative scholarships anywhere.

Tuckwell graduates have gone on to become Rhodes scholars at Oxford, as well as Monash, Ramsay and Fulbright scholars.

For more information visit https://tuckwell.anu.edu.au/tuckwell-scholarships-awarded-2024

Congratulations to Alexander Howdin – the latest in Fort Street’s enviable list of Tuckwell winners!

Recent Sporting Achievements from Fort Street Students

There is a lot going on in the world of sport at the moment and this definitely extends to Fort Street High School. Amongst the many Fortians playing sport at a high level, two students have had some recent success that warrants documenting:

Christopher Sakal

Earlier this year Christopher represented Sydney North (Fort St) in the NSW CHS 15U Individual Championships in tennis. He won both the Boys Doubles and Mixed Doubles events and came third in Boys Singles, resulting in the highest overall point score for the tournament in his age group.

Christopher is currently ranked 4th in 14U Boys in NSW and 18th Nationally. In December he will be travelling to Melbourne to compete in the Junior Masters, where the top-32 ranked players from each age-group in Australia will compete in an invite-only tournament.

Well done Christopher! Good luck for the rest of the season, Fort Street wish you all the best.

Vlada Vasiliev

Over the past few years Vlada has competed at a high level in the sport of Figure Skating. She has travelled overseas to train with and compete against, some of the best Figure Skaters in the world.

In July, Vlada travelled to Adelaide to compete in the annual inter-state competition ‘SA Skate’. Vlada performed very well under pressure, coming first in the Senior Women Free Skating competition!

Congratulations Vlada and best of luck for the 2023 season.

NSW Schools Titration Competition 2023

Eight teams made up of Year 12 and 11 Chemistry students, participated in the N.S.W Titration competition that was held at Wenona School, North Sydney in June.

From the forty teams that participated at Wenona, one of our Year 12 teams came first and were awarded gold medals. Their total team score was one, zero being a perfect score. An outstanding achievement.

The students in the team that were awarded 1^st place: Jiani WEI, Rebecca WONG and Emma ZHAO

When the scores are processed from about 400 other teams in NSW by the coordinators, they are most likely to have the best score in NSW.

Lastly, I would like to thank the Fort Street teams, for giving up their Saturday morning to participate in the competition.

Mr Leondios

Titration Coordinator

My Year 10 work experience – Hugh Phan

When I first heard about Year 10 work experience it never crossed my mind that I might find myself spending a week in Bendigo, Victoria, building electric cars with Bortana.

I had already done some work with Baraja, a research and development company focused on building LIDAR sensors for autonomous vehicles. I worked there twice, 2 weeks in the July holidays 2022 and 3 weeks in the summer holidays 2023. I worked with the electronics team to make test protoboards and design simple PCBs.

From that experience, I was recommended to Bortana, who were looking for new engineers. I had lunch with one of the team leaders from Bortana and they agreed to host me for work experience. Bortana is a company that makes the Bortana EV, a battery electric mining light truck.

Baraja gave me the skillset and evidence that convinced Bortana to take me on for a work experience placement and that’s how I found myself heading down to Bendigo to spend a week working with the engineering team.

I was given a taste of Bortana from every engineering angle. Data & Telematics, Electrical, Software, Mechanical. For Data & Telematics, I analyzed the data from the car to profile bad batteries based on a number of key factors. For Electrical, I helped to build replaceable connectors for the car. This included, stripping, crimping, soldering and heat shrinking. For mechanical, I was tasked with tuning the 3D printer profile, I dialed in the settings and now the quality, speed, strength of all future 3D prints has all improved. For software, I was given an overview of the workflow and we went for a test drive. We drove it off road, in the bush and tested the regenerative braking systems on the car. At the end, I gave a presentation on my key takeaways, feedback for providing work experience experiences and feedback for the company as a whole.

This is the Youtube video that I made, documenting my experience in Bendigo.

Youtube Video: https://youtu.be/9YgXmWyHYn

I want to give a big thank you to all of the Bortana staff I worked with, especially Rikki, who hosted me there. Thanks to Mum and Dad and Miss Salisbury for greenlighting this experience. I’m looking forward to doing more work experience in the STEM field and I’m very excited for the future.

Hugh Phan – Year 10

Senior PDHPE students at Sydney Swans HQ

At the end of last term, the Year 11 and Year 12 PDHPE students had the privilege of visiting the Sydney Swans new Head Quarters in Moore Park. The students received a tour of the world class facilities and spoke to the staff about different aspects of the club and how the AFL and WAFL players prepare for a game.

The students were also lucky enough to receive a lecture from the club’s Head Psychologist Suzie Rhydderch. Amongst other things, Suzie discussed the practical application of several HSC syllabus points regarding the mental aspects of optimal performance. In true Fort Street fashion, the students were full of questions for Suzie and were not afraid to ask her all about what her job entails and how she managed to land such a great role!

The students rubbed shoulders with some of the Swans AFL and WAFL players and generally had a great time. In addition to cementing some of the HSC content students have been learning, hopefully this trip will spark an interest in the fields of health/sport and provide some motivation for the students to shoot for their goals.

Special thank you to Ms Ezekiel for organising such a fascinating excursion!

Save the Date for our Fort Street Musical!

SAVE THE DATE!

The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – 10 and 11 August, 7pm FSHS Hall.

It is finally here – the first EVER Fort Street Musical will be held on 10 and 11 August. The cast and musicians are polishing the performance and we are getting very excited to share this wonderful show with the school community.

Tickets will be on sale soon – so watch this space!

Here are a few photos of the students hard at work on the weekend, rehearsing for the performance.

Peer Support Activities Afternoon

On the last day of Term 2, the Year 7 students and the Year 10 Peer Support Leaders had an ‘Activities Afternoon’ to help further foster relationships between the two groups. The Year 10 Peer Support Leaders organised a series of games for the Year 7’s to play and joined-in where possible. All students had a great time and hopefully the rapport between the Year 7’s and Year 10’s will continue to blossom throughout the year (and into the future).

This was the third Peer Support session the Year 10’s have successfully run this year. They are doing a great job in their role as student leaders and should be proud of their efforts. Thank you as well to Ms Lawson, Ms Propsting, Ms Dooley and Mr Vaughan for their assistance.

Wanderer’s Cup

Wanderer’s Cup

Each year the Western Sydney Wanderer’s FC host Soccer tournaments for high school students. This year Fort Street entered three teams in the Year 7&8 tournament. Our teams travelled out to the excellent facilities out at Rooty Hill and played against school’s from all around Western Sydney.

All three teams played well and recorded wins. It was great to see them all supporting and cheering each other on. One of the teams (Team 2) performed particularly well and reached the semi-finals, only to lose a heart-breaker on penalties and finish third overall (see Noah Field’s clutch penalty kick on the video).

All the players are to be commended on their effort and performance on the day. There were a few highlights that are worth a special mention. The girls team captain Beatrice Shimada was not only brilliant in goals, but she also showed outstanding leadership skills and realistically played the role of player/coach on the day. Several coaches from other schools commented on the maturity and teamwork shown by our girl’s team. Another highlight was Mark Donlon, who played dynamically up front and ended up being the tournament’s leading goal scorer! This was a significant achievement considering the number of teams who participated and fact that Mark is only in Year 7!

It was a physically demanding day, with the students playing on full-sized pitches, but only having very short breaks between games. All the players gave their all during the games and one student (who will remain nameless) literally gave everything they had and had to be carried to the bus!

Thanks to Ms Ezekiel and Mr Sarif for organising such a fun day.

Team 1:

Beatrice Shimada

Eliza Cai

Avivi Davidson

Aira Garg

Nozomi Giorgini

Steph Ha

Xixi He

Audrey Khong

Vera Liang

Jay Jay Wasley

Anne Liu

Rita Munoz

Nina O’Keeffe

Devika Warrier

Nancy Zhang

Team 2:

Christopher Alexidis

Noah Field

Mark Donlon

Achyuth Arunjai

Darwin Chan

Victor Feng

Akira Howard

Saharsh Kontham

Kayvis Lan

Michael Nguyen

Lakshin Saravanan

Saahil Noor

Parthiv Prithvi

Zachary Silvester

Ruslane Singatouline

Dhruv Singh

Team 3:

Gabriel Cutcher Skellern

Billy Dacey

Joshua Feng

Wilson He

Mohsin Fouladi

Adam Jebara

Caleb Jeung

Hayden Kan

Vijay Mahendran

Francesco Menichetti

Gautham Palluru

Luke Patterson

James Sun

Boris Tosic

Jacob Turner

Ian Zhang

Regional Cross Country 2023

On Thursday 15^th June, the annual Regional Cross Country Carnival was held at the Entertainment Grounds in Gosford. The top-10 finishers at each age group from the Zone Cross Country were invited to participate. 27 Fort Street qualified for the event, which was a terrific effort.

The following students performed exceptionally well and finished in the top-15:

Francis Nield – 7^th place in Boys 12 Years

Chip Humphreys – 9^th place in Boys 12 Years

Reuben Winkler – 14^th place in Boys 12 Years

Harrison Ma – 11^th place in Boys 13 Years

Akira Howard – 12^th place in Boys 14 Years

Calan O’Dwyer – 4^th place in Boys 17 Years

Oscar Buck – 8^th place in Boys 18 Years

Fort Street students who qualified for the event:

Thank you to Ms Ezekiel and Mr Redford for their hard work on the day and during the lead-up to the carnival. Congratulations to all the students who qualified!

Chess Fever Grips Fort Street for Record Setting 2023 Season

This year, Fort Street participated once again in the Metropolitan Secondary School Chess Competition.

The Metropolitan Secondary School Chess Competition allows students from schools all over Sydney to form teams of four and compete against each other. In 2023, the school had 78 students competing in the competition and fielded 18 teams – the most of any school, public or private, in the entire state of New South Wales.

This resulted in a veritable “Festival of Chess”, taking place in the Fort Street Hall every fortnight as we welcome schools from across the region – with three of our teams advancing to the regional quarterfinal round.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019, the chess world has seen an unprecedented surge in popularity, owing in part to the release of the widely acclaimed Netflix series, “The Queen’s Gambit,” as well as the emergence of entertainers such as IM Levy Rozman (a.k.a. GothamChess).

Coordinated by Mr James Wright, the Metropolitan Secondary School Chess Competition provided an exhilarating and enriching experience, fostering connections among students from different schools as well as improving their chess skills.

The school was also extremely fortunate to have Fortian and champion player, Mr. Clive Ng, on hand during most weeks to lend his strategic acumen to proceedings and provide coaching and tips to students of all levels to improve our games and enhance our performance. We thank Mr. Ng for giving up his time!

“I was able to meet my old friends, and I really enjoyed playing them in chess”, said Year 9 student William Ly.

As previously stated, three teams managed to reach the finals, Senior Fort Street A, Intermediate Fort Street B and Junior Fort Street C.

These Fortians are congratulated on their achievements and we wish them the best of luck as they progress to their respective finals.

Written by Yu Wu – Year 9 and Mr. Wright

Lost Property

There have been a large number of winter jackets, both old and new, collected in lost property. We also have brand new sports shorts, school ties and school jumpers.

Any items that have names on them we return to the students but the current stock pile we have all have no names on them.

If your child has lost one of these they can come to the school office and look through what has been handed in.

We ask that all families take the time to label ALL items to ensure they can be returned to them if they are lost. Please label all items clearly with your child’s full name.

Items are only held within lost property for a few weeks, they are then donated to the secondhand uniform shop or non-school items are donated to charities if they are in acceptable condition.

Premier’s Reading Challenge ending soon!

The deadline for entering your books for the Premier’s Reading Challenge is August 18^th. Remember you can read ten own choice books and ten from the PRC list in the years 5-6, 7-9 and 9 plus booklists. You can now read five books in a PRC series and another five in a series for your own choice books. Due to the disruption we have all experienced over the last few years, year 10 students can still take part in the Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Please see Ms Page in the Library if you need any assistance with your Premier’s Reading Challenge entries.

Happy reading!

Save the date! Fort St Career Expo

Years 11 and 12 and parents are invited to join their child(ren) at the FORT STREET’s CAREERS EXPO

Tuesday 15 August
1 – 4pm

Presenters include:

University Admissions Centre
University of Sydney
University of NSW
UTS, ACU,
Macquarie University
Western Sydney University
SEDA group, ACPE,
National Art School
Academy of Interactive Entertainment
UNSW Co-op program
Macquarie Actuarial Co-ops
Camphin Boston Cadet Program
UTS Accounting Co-ops

Advice from past HSC Languages students

Are you thinking about studying a language for the HSC? Or are you a senior student already studying a language? Are you interested in the benefits of language study? Or are you looking for some tried and true study strategies?

The Language and Culture unit of the Department of Education has recently produced a great resource to support languages students – “Reflections and Advice from past HSC students”. This PowerPoint presentation contains two videos in which university students are interviewed about their motivations for studying languages for the HSC. Students cite broader job opportunities, living and travelling overseas and a passion for culture and history as t

heir main motives. The students also share tips on what strategies worked for them when it came to preparing for their language exams. Overwhelmingly, the students found their language studies fun and invigorating as they opened a world of possibilities.

Two Fortians participated in the project. Ilha Jung studied Japanese Continuers in 2021. He is currently studying at the University of New South Wales and uses Japanese to communicate with clients at work. Luca Butterworth studied German Continuers and Extension in 2021. He is currently studying Arts/Law, also at the UNSW, and has so far found German useful in his philosophy course. Both students intend to make use of their valuable language skills in their future careers.

The presentation can be found on the HSC Hub on the NESA website: www.hschub.nsw.edu.au/languages-items/reflections-and-advice-from-past-hsc-students

Kristina Reynolds

Languages Faculty

Meet Ms Shi

What subject do you teach?

Mathematics

What was your favourite subject at school?

Mathematics and English

An interesting fact about yourself that you’d be willing to share?

Actually, a big K-pop fan, love doing dance covers as well.

Why did you become a teacher?

Deeply inspired by my high school mathematics teacher

What do you love about being at Fort Street?

Definitely the people, both the staff and students are lovely, supportive and awesome.

Do you think pineapple goes on a pizza?

NOOOOOOOOOO!

SRC Report!

GOOOAAALLLLL!! Everyone in the Fort Street community was cheering for the Matilda’s in their win against Ireland last Thursday, but especially those lucky students who guessed Australia’s win in the SRC’s Women’s FIFA World Cup Tipping Competition!! Thanks to all the Fortians who have joined our fun competition to be in the running for a $50 Rebel Gift voucher – we look forward to crowning the ultimate tipping champion, and hopefully celebrating Australia as the winner as well!! 

The Year 10 and Year 11 SRC members were really happy to run workshops last Friday for Years 7-10 to add on to our NAIDOC Week celebrations. These workshops had two main activities: to encourage students to learn about the Uluru Statement From the Heart, and reflect on the impacts of dispossession and colonisation for First Nations individuals and communities. The students listened to the Statement, picked out words or phrases that resonated with them, and grouped their chosen phrases into the three themes “Voice, Treaty, Truth”. We discussed what the three themes meant, including the upcoming Voice to Parliament referendum. Then the students considered the importance of “People, Place, Language, Values and Customs” and how they would feel if those important aspects of their cultural identity were taken away. The workshops helped to expand everyone’s knowledge and understanding of NAIDOC Week, and we hope that all the participants learnt lots and had fun!!

The SRC created Good Luck Year 12 signs for their difficult Trial Exams occurring this week – and over 80 Fortians wrote messages of encouragement as well. Check out the display at the Cohen Undercroft, and best wishes to all of the students completing their trials in the next few weeks!

Finally, we had some additional Multicultural Day photos to share with you all – have a look below for some extra pics! Please don’t hesitate to contact the SRC with any comments or concerns at srcfshs@gmail.com or @fshssrc on our Instagram page, and of course any of your friendly SRC representatives!! 

Thanks Fort Street!

Kalanie Prabhakar (she/her)

SRC President 

IMP News

IMP Winter Concert

On Friday 23 June the much-anticipated IMP Winter Concert took place. The event began with the traditional winter dinner in the Fountain Quad with a sausage sizzle, salads, nachos, and soups all on offer thanks to the amazing volunteer IMP parents. There was a lively buzz in the air as the crowd feasted while entertained by the Fort Street Jazz Ensemble.

When the time for the concert arrived, 650 audience members excitedly filled the hall, and were treated to a stellar evening, featuring every ensemble in the IMP. Each group performed with great skill and enthusiasm, with the biggest cheer of the evening going to the Training Band, as is tradition.

Our Year 12 cohort were farewelled with the traditional medal ceremony and speeches. These wonderful performers and role models will be greatly missed, but we look forward to seeing them carry their love of music out into the world.

Thanks to the IMP Committee and the Catering Committee, without whom this event would not happen. The Winter Concert is the IMP’s biggest fundraiser of the year, thanks to the spirit and generosity of the IMP community. This enables the IMP to continue to provide world-class musical education and performance opportunities to our students. Thanks to the IMP community who donated time, food, and money for the event, and who have provided the opportunity for their kids to take part in musical activities. Thanks to the school executive and administration, who provide constant support. Congratulations to all IMP members for your hard work and commitment to your ensembles.

Congratulations to two fabulous Fort Street cellists

Two of our IMP cellists have been given opportunities to shine recently.

Clara Moloney performed a solo in the Opera House late last term as part of the Festival of Instrumental Music. Clara also recently competed in the NSW Secondary Schools Concerto Competition, playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and was honoured to receive the $1000 Barbara Cran Award for Junior runner-up.

Ethan Tsang has been selected to perform a solo in the upcoming Festival of Choral Music, also at the Opera House.

Huge congratulations to both of these talented young cellists!

AYO 2024 Applications are open

The Australian Youth Orchestra has opened applications for their 2024 programs. From gifted, school-aged students to those on the verge of a professional career, AYO provides specialised training opportunities for the next generation of musicians, composers and arts administrators aged 12 – 30.

For more information and to apply, visit ayo.com.au/applications

Family-friendly gig guide

Too School for Cool have made it easy to source fun and inspirational family-friendly jazz gigs around Sydney with this great guide on their website. Find it here: https://tooschoolforcoolsyd.wixsite.com/too-school-for-cool/gig-guide-1?fbclid=IwAR2_tv64tH_BlLP_1s9YF6Tj_fhfGreF7IXmFGB9mDOWX66P6NVGzFDZDPc_aem_AZynA6wLH-NeEsoHM70an_LjCSk1creVi5N7gp-jZFI_F-6iIO7WcjFFFHpXDmJZe_o&mibextid=S66gvF

Gondwana Choirs 2024 applications open

Applications are now open to be in Gondwana choirs for their 2024 season. For more information and to apply, please follow this link: https://gondwana.org.au/gondwana-national-choirs/

P&C News

The P&C holds meetings at 7:30pm on the second Wednesday of each month during school terms. The first meeting of the term is in the school library and the following meetings each term are held via Zoom. These meetings provide an opportunity to learn more about what is happening in the school, how it operates, to ask questions and to meet other parents. The Principal usually gives an informative report on the recent happenings within the school.

Before each P&C meeting is a presentation on a focus item, for example on Wellbeing, eSafety, or how a particular subject is taught.

Next meeting: Wednesday 13th September at 7.00pm, in person in the school library.

(No meeting on Wednesday 9th August due to the Open Evening).

Upcoming Events:

The P&C will be holding a Working Bee one weekend this term. If you can spare some time to help with gardening, cleaning, painting and tidying, keep an eye out for more information and a sign up sheet in an email soon.

Recent contributions to the school:

The P&C have contributed to many activities and resources including:

• Purchasing sports equipment for students to use at lunch time
• Funds to assist in the running of the SRC Future Leaders Conference
• New BBQ for school events
• Lego Education kits
• Robo soccer equipment
• Extra chess sets for the Chess Club
• $10,000 for professional sound operators and equipment for the School Musical
• $30,000 for outdoor gym
• $14,000 for outdoor seating in the valley
• $25,000 for yarning circle
• $30,000 for School Hall sound system upgrade

CCUSA CAMP COUNSELOR 2024 APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN

Summer camps in the USA are a tradition dating back more than 100 years. Every year almost 300 New South Wales participants head to the USA between June and August to work as camp counselors.

Aussies are WANTED to work at American Summer Camps across the USA in 2024! Ditch the Aussie winter and spend the US summer in America living and working as a camp counselor and enjoy back-to-back summers. If your students have an interest of working at an American summer camp, then CCUSA would love to help get them get placed at the job of their dreams during the Aussie Winter.

CCUSA have placed 100% of our accepted applicants for the last 35 years with hopes to continue to do so. These are open to those who are 18 and over by 1 June of each year. The program runs from June to September (Northern Hemisphere summer). Aussies are always high in demand to work as camp counselors/leaders at the 1000+ camps that CCUSA work with across the USA and Canada. This program can be done, before, during or after Uni/TAFE/College.

Participants on the CCUSA Program, receive free accommodation and 3 meals a day, visa sponsorship, 24 hour emergency support and approximately $2000 US pocket money.

Camp is a wonderful opportunity to work in a multi-cultural environment with staff attending from around 50 different countries. Working or volunteering overseas is also useful in guiding students in personal growth, leadership, professional development, and work-related skills and deciding on a study or career path.

Visit their website for more information https://www.ccusa.com.au/

Or view the e brochures below.

·        CLICK HERE for the electronic brochure for Camp Counselors USA program.

·        CLICK HERE for the electronic brochure for Camp Counselors Canada program.

They also have a zoom information session about the camp counselor program on August 1^st at 6pm AEST time. If any students would like to know more information.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86422447117?pwd=OTNGeFlSZ2YxR0N2UUQ0eS9xZFNWdz09

Meeting ID: 864 2244 7117

Passcode: 933995