To celebrate International Day for Women and Girls in Science, some of Footscray High School’s curious Year 9 and Year 10 students had the amazing opportunity to ask questions about STEM careers for females.
Dr Muneera Bano, Dr Amy Coetsee & A/Prof Misty Jenkins
To top off this great event, our curious minds were treated to their own showbag generously provided by WEHI and GTAC.
I would like to thank Amy, Sophia, Leena, Tahlia, Rosie (all Year 9) and Emily, Ella, Scarlette and Ava (all Year 10) for their participation and great questions!
If you are curious about STEM and would like to know more about how you can get involved in events and activities specifically designed for Women & Girls in STEM, check out this amazing map created by the Office of the Lead Scientist Victoria:
Cate Kennedy provides our Year 12 English & EAL Students with valuable insight into the writing process.
Cate Kennedy is one of Australia’s leading literary figures ‒ and a master of the short story form.
On Friday March the 5th Cate gave a talk to year 12 English and EAL students who are studying the collection of short stories “Like A House on Fire” for their Unit 3 Reading and Creating: Analytical Text Response.
Cate provided insight to students about her writing process, her ideas and how she explores the personal themes of ordinary people as a worthy subject; characters dealing with powerlessness, loss of agency, fallibility and mortality in her collection.
The FHS English Faculty would like to thank Cate for giving so much of her time to talk to students individually and answer their questions about the text and her writing process.
After missing out on all of our camps last year, it was awesome to be finally going on our first camp for outdoor and environmental studies.
The 4-day camp was located in Torquay and the surrounding Bellarine Peninsula.
We are a small class and as a result, able to do more activities and get around the coast easier.
The camp was an amazing learning experience as we were able to experience what we had been learning in class first-hand.
The camp focused on relationships people have with outdoor environments and how we use them. As part of the area of study, we did multiple recreational activities that included surfing, stand-up paddleboarding and hiking.
Through these experiences, we discovered more about the tourism industry and how towns like Torquay and Anglesea heavily rely on tourism. A lady from EcoLogic gave some insight into how COVID-19 has impacted similar business along the coastline.
The camp also focused on the Bellarine Peninsula pre-European settlement, post-European settlement and the effect settlement had on the traditional inhabitants of the land. We looked specifically at how the Wathaurong tribe interacted with the land.
The Koorie Cultural Walk gave us examples of how native flora and fauna were used by the Wathaurong tribe in their everyday lives. On one of our hikes, we walked to the Alcoa Mine in Anglesea.
It was a huge shock to be walking out of a fairly untouched environment and arriving at a chain-link fence bordering the mine. In the distance, we could see the chimney from the Anglesea Power Plant. The mine showed how severe the impacts of coal mining, industrialisation and our current lifestyles are on the environment.
Overall, the camp was a valuable learning experience and opened our eyes to current day issues and impacts. The camp was predominantly hands-on learning and was a refresher from the standard in-class experience.
Starting in Term 3, we will be welcoming Daniel as our artist in residence. Daniel will be working alongside the FHS Arts Department and school staff to gain further insights into their creative mediums and devices.
The Creative Workers in Schools program, delivered by Regional Arts Victoria in partnership with the Department of Education and Training and Creative Victoria through the support of the Victorian Government’s Working for Victoria initiative, is providing the opportunity for 150 creative industry workers to undertake a six-month residency in Victorian government schools, including special schools. Regional Arts Victoria is the peak body for regional artists and arts organisations, and the leading organisation for regional creative practice in Victoria.
Welcoming our Artist: Daniel Newell
Daniel Newell grew up on unceded Gunditjmara lands in Warrnambool and respectfully acknowledges the First Nations peoples as the first inhabitants of the Land and as the traditional owners, caretakers, custodians of the lands, rivers and waters. Daniel expresses deep awareness that they currently create work, perform, live and learn upon the lands of the (Woiwurrung) Wurundjeri and the (Bunurong) Boon Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation. These ancestral Lands are home to stories, songlines and dances that are part of the oldest living cultures in human history. I pay my respects to Elders past, present and ongoing.
Daniel is a non-binary [ they/them ] dancer, maker, performance artist and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts. Cat-walking the fine-eyeliner of the pop cultural and political, Daniel’s work can be defined as creatively chaotic and cathartic, often outing itself as homo-erratic. Having performed in over twenty countries, highlights include working with ABC’s ‘You Can’t Ask That’, Yirramboi Festival, Melbourne Festival, Dance Massive, Arts House, Sydney Opera House, Bollywood Film, Strange Fruit Productions, Shelley Lasica, Deanne Butterworth, Rafael Bonachela and Kylie Minogue. Through dance and experimental performance art, Daniel has created solid prominence within so-called-Australia’s queer ecology with character DANDROGYNY.
‘Drodge’ at their core, playfully calls us to notice the performed nature of hyper masculinity and its toxic implications. Daniel is currently creating – Ned Kylie – a theatrical slur exploring Aussie iconography, queering national treasures and exploring Australian fragilities through Performance Art. ‘Mini Beast Disco’ is an ongoing collaborative project being created at the Abbotsford Convent as a part of Pivot Residency 2021.
Moses’ SAT project was selected for Top Designs in 2021 and the Technotes article interviews Moses where he talks about his project and experience at FHS.
MAN and Moses at the VCAA Top Designs Exhibition, part of the 2021 Season of Excellence
The article acknowledges the exceptionally hard work that both Michael and Moses put in to the project and some of the challenges that arose for students completing subjects with heavy practical components while in lockdown.
Despite students having less access to the technology workshop spaces in 2020, Micheal Antony noted that the flexibility of Google Meet sessions was a positive and opened up further opportunities to provide personalised guidance to his students during evenings and weekends.
Systems Engineering
Moses’s Systems Engineering project solves is the cost/adaptability barriers that are present in the current underwater observation market.
In response to this problem, Moses’s product roughly needed to cost in the low hundreds, contain ample room for additional hardware as well as use simple scalable software. It had to be smaller than most similar technologies, and easier to deploy.
Systems Engineering allowed me to get a lot more hands on time with distinct electronic components and to have a solid practical knowledge behind what I’m learning at university which is very valuable
Moses’s advice to future Systems Engineering students when designing their folio is that it doesn’t need to be a doctoral dissertation. “You can be whatever you want to be so long as you are good at it and employers are hiring in your field of interest and expertise.”
In 2017 Moses founded the start-up Eutropia Aerospace with classmate Hamish Drummond. The startup combines reusable rockets with hybrid fuel to provide a more cost-effective way of getting micro-satellites into orbit.
Eutropia believes in reusing, rethinking and speeding up existing hybrid rocket technology.
In this interview Moses discuses the emerging Australian space-tech industry & how the space and satellite industry may be worth $2.7 trillion globally by 2030
Mary Poppins is coming to Footscray High School! Everyone’s favourite practically perfect nanny takes the stage in this Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious musical adventure.
While most of our teaching staff at Footscray High School are timetabled at their ‘home’ campus for 2022, having the flexibility for staff (especially in specialist areas) to move between sites fosters collaboration in creating, delivering, and supporting teaching and learning across all three campuses.
To effectively manage the operation, hours and class times for 2022 required adjustment.
Listed below are the 2022 school hours and instruction times.
School Day 2022
From term 1 this year (2022) the FHS school day will start at 8:45am and finish at 3.15pm, and include 30-minute recess and 60-minute lunch break.
Timetable
P1 – 8:45-9:35am
P2 – 9:35-10:25am
Recess – 10:25-10:55am
P3 – 10:55-11:45am
P4 – 11:45-12:35pm
Lunch – 12:35-1:35pm
P5 – 1:35-2:25pm
P6 – 2:25-3:15pm
Tentative key dates for events and holidays relevant to FHS :
Event
January New Year’s Day
Australia Day Teachers start Year 12 students start.
February Term 1 starts (Years 7-11)
March Labour Day.
April Term 1 finishes Easter weekend ANZAC Day Term 2 starts
An election is to be conducted for members of the School Council of Footscray High School.
I would like to invite students, parents and staff to take the opportunity to make a contribution to the ongoing development and improvement of Footscray High School through membership of the school council.
Parent, student and school employee representatives on school council are selected for a two-year period with half of each of these groups elected each year. The following member vacancies are available in 2022.
3 Parents
2 School Employees
2 Students
Nominations open on Wednesday 16 February 2022.
Nomination forms are linked below or may be obtained from the general office and must be lodged by
4.00pm on Wednesday 23 February 2022.
Nominations should be lodged with Kaylene Tanti via email (Kaylene.tanti@education.vic.gov.au) or delivered to the Pilgrim Street campus office, 1 Pilgrim Street, Seddon. Anybody who wishes to use a postal nomination should ensure their nomination is posted to the below postal address in time to reach the school by 4pm on Wednesday, 23 February 2022.
Following the closing of nominations a list of the nominations received will be posted.
If there is more than the required number of nominations then a ballot will be required, if the number of nominations is less than the number of vacancies, a notice to that effect and calling for further nominations will occur. Candidate statements will be required to be submitted by 9am, Friday, 25 February if a ballot is required. Statements to be provided in Word format or via email. Statements no more than 150 words.
Please find below the School Council Election Process and Timetable:
Event
Date
Notice of Election and call for Nominations
Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Closing date for nominations
Wednesday, 23 February 2022 4pm
Date by which the list of candidates and nominators will be posted
Friday, 24 February 2022
Date by which ballot papers will be prepared and distributed
On or before Wednesday, 2 March 2022
Close of ballot
4pm Wednesday, 9 March 2022
Vote count
Thursday, 10 March 2022
Declaration of poll
Friday, 11 March 2022
Special council meeting to coopt Community members (the principal will preside)
Tuesday, 15 March 2022
First council members to elect office bearers (the principal will preside)
Tuesday, 15 March 2022
Please contact me if you require further information via Kaylene Tanti on 9112 9500 or Kaylene.tanti@education.vic.gov.au
Yours sincerely,
Frank Vetere
Executive Principal
Information & Nomination Forms
Fact Sheet 1: School council elections — information for parents
The Clinic was also part of our Year 9 Community Bike Hub Project – a new program at FHS that strongly advocates for sustainable practices and creating outcomes for the greater good of the community.
In the Bike Hub Project, our year 9 students navigate a range of tasks such as striping bikes, repairing parts and flat tyres and building up new bikes from used parts as well as developing safe work practices that include workbench set-up and management, proper tool use, safe handling of chemicals and positive relationships.
Thanks to the Inner West Community Bike Hub for the clinic, it is amazing to see everyone getting involved with active transport around the school.
This event is a pop-up screening of Top End Wedding next Friday April 8, 6pm at Railway Reserve in Footscray. There will also be a performance by Indigenous poet and rapper Caution.
Footscray High School’s student leaders are raising money for the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal. An out of uniform day will be held at all three campuses on the last day of term – Friday April 8th.
The Good Friday Appeal raises funds to support the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne to provide world class care to children and their families. Over 50,000 children are treated in the wards and medical centre, and 90,000 children are looked after in the emergency department each year. A number of Footscray High School families have benefitted from the wonderful care provided at the Royal Children’s Hospital and our students feel passionately that they want to contribute to this cause.
There are many ways to stay up to date with all things FHS – Heres a rundown on what we communicate via each channel
Compass
Official school correspondence will be sent via the Compass Portal. It is important that parents and carers check in regularly.
With Compass you can
• Monitor your child’s attendance, and enter an explanation for absence or lateness • Communicate with your child’s teachers, and update your family contact details • View your child’s timetable and the school calendar • Download and view your child’s academic reports • Book parent-teacher conferences • Pay and provide consent for events and school fees
Download the Compass App
The Compass app allows you to subscribe to SMS or push notifications whenever information relevant to you is posted.
Download the Compass app from Google Play or the App Store· on a compatible phone or tablet. Then enter Footscray High School school name and select it from the results. Enter your login details provided by your school to finish the set up.
Compass Parent Portal Overview
Compass have put together a guide to using the portal for parents and carers. It covers
What is Compass?
How do I access Compass?
Compass Apps
The Compass home screen
Attendance
Events, Consent & Payment
Wallet
Viewing Academic Reports
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Ordering Photos
Student Profile
Learning Tasks
Privacy and Security
We have also put together a playlist of how-to videos on our Youtube channel
Our website contains: information about our school for current and prospective families, school policies, current employment opportunities and contact information for key staff and leadership. Links to FHS google sites such the library website, student voice, clubs, subject selection, careers, Year 6-7 transition are also linked via our main website
Social Media
We post less formal communication on our social media channels, here’s a rundown of what you can expect from each one. Click through and give us a follow!
Follow us on Facebook
Our Facebook page is a community for sharing event updates, special achievements, photos and videos of past events, reminders, links and content from our Learning Precinct partners.
We post notifications and links to new blog posts here too.
Any official announcements posted on our facebook page will also be posted via Compass.
Our Instagram account is for sharing photos and videos of past events and the day to day happenings around Footscray High School. We occasionally post reminders or event notifications on Instagram as well.
Our Youtube account is mainly used for live streams of events like lunchtime concerts. We will send out a notification prior to the event so everyone can tune in.
Our Youtube channel also has playlists of videos featuring FHS uploaded by other channels.
Follow our blog to read longer form write ups about events and activity at Footscray High School. We will usually post an update via Facebook and Instagram whenever there is a new post to read.
You can see our latest posts listed at the bottom of the homepage, they are also linked via the Life@Footscray menu or this direct link
Any official announcements posted on our website or blog will also be posted via Compass.
On Monday 4th April at the Footscray Library, our year 8 Community STEAM classes finished up the term by presenting their ideas on how to improve our community spaces to Maribyrnong Council.
A wide variety of locations were considered, from Yarraville to Edgewater, and some important and creative ideas were proposed. Well done year 8s!
Our VCE Art & Studio Art Students have been out to see a number of exhibitions so far this year.
During their VCE study, each VCE Art & Studio Arts student is required to visit at least two art spaces where they observe and learn the difference between the art spaces.
The Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square
Students need to be able to describe and compare different art spaces and what their specific roles are in terms of exhibiting artworks.
Viewing street art in CBD Laneways, an alternative exhibition space
Spaces include museums, community environments, public galleries, private galleries, online virtual spaces and other alternative spaces. Through their visits to these different Art spaces students become aware of the Factors and considerations for conservation and preservation of artworks at the different galleries.
Factors involved in designing ‘Top Arts’ part of the VCE Season of Excellence
Students visited the Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square to attend the Top Arts exhibition where they also attended a lecture and were able to view the folios of the exhibiting students.
The annual Top Arts exhibition is part of the VCE Season of Excellence and showcases extraordinary works of art and folios that achieved outstanding results in VCE Art or VCE Studio Arts.
Folio viewing after the lecture on Top Arts exhibition
The exhibition spans historical eras and diverse media including painting, drawing, photography, decorative arts, fashion, video, sculpture, and design and explores queerness as an expression of sexuality and gender, a political movement, a sensibility, and as an attitude that defies fixed definition.
The exhibition shines a light on the NGV Collection to examine and reveal the queer stories works of art can tell.
QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection includes approximately 400 artworks from antiquity to the present day, making the exhibition the most historically expansive thematic presentation of its kind ever presented by an Australian art institution.
Some of the Year 9 Community Inquiry Projects classes spent three Fridays recently connecting with their theme and their community through a Community Service experience.
With the help and direction of the Maribyrnong Park Ranger students spent these days at Newells Paddock and Footscray Park carrying out rubbish collection, bird monitoring, plant propagation, weeding and planting.
Tickets for the VCE Production of The 39 Steps are NOW ON SALE!
Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps, a fast-paced whodunit for anyone who loves the magic of theatre! This 2-time Tony® and Drama Desk Award-winning treat is packed with nonstop laughs. Adapted by Patrick Barlow From the novel by John Buchan, Footscray High School’s VCE Theatres Studies class presents, THE 39 STEPS!
Flavoured sparkling water $3 (Passionfruit, raspberry, lime)
Fruit $1 (apples, bananas, mandarins)
Getting there
When you arrive at school at 8.45am you will meet in your homegroups for roll marking. We will then board a bus to take us to Aberfeldie Athletics Track.
Arriving
When we arrive we will enter through the car park.
Teachers will direct students on where to sit. Students are to listen to the teachers when they are speaking.
Announcements
A teacher will make an announcement at the start of the carnival. The announcement will let students know about the day ahead, the events and when break times might be. This will be very helpful.
Event will start at 10 am and run until 2pm.
Following the Rules
At the carnival, students must follow the school rules when going to the toilet.
These rules are:
Keep the toilet area clean and tidy.
Eat outside the toilet area
Gather with your friends outside the toilet area.
Be respectful.
Carnival Timetable of Events
At the end of the day we will clean up and then present the House Cup.
Getting back to school
We will catch the bus back to school in homegroups and arrive around 3.15pm.
This beautiful painting was done by Olive in year 8 and we’re so excited to share that it’s been selected as one of the 70 finalists in this year’s Young Archibald Prize!
“I chose warm colours for this painting to show the warm, safe and happy relationship I have with my big sister Edith and my cat Blossom, and the close friendship they have with each other. I used dark indigo because it contrasts well with the warm colours. I used white gouache for the highlights to make them pop.”
This tenth year of the Young Archie competition, which started in 2013, saw a record number of entries (over 2400!) as well as the largest number of finalists ever exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW, from 14 May to 24 August 2022.
Olive’s painting is titled “Edith and Blossom” and you can see the entry on the Archibald Prize website here:
Head into team three feeling positive with these fantastic resources on mindfulness, wellbeing and positive psychology created by some of our Year 9 students last semester.
Psychology for Success – The Podcast
May, Cara and Jamie (Year 9 Psychology students) created podcast with the intention of educating and encouraging others with goal setting and achieving higher fulfilment.
Mindfulness & Wellbeing Posters by Lily
This is a collection of posters made by a student in one of this semester’s psychology classes!
These posters have been designed to help students and other people in the community improve and take care of their mental health, as well as support people with their mental health.
Ivy (Year 9 Psychology student) created this poster
“Pain is real but so is hope”
We all have days that we feel angry, exhausted, disappointed and unhappy. When you start to realise that you are feeling that, you may want to ask yourself “How did I begin to end up being like this?”
If you ever ask yourself this question, raise your hand.
This is the moment that your decision matters, would you just settle where you are and accept the way it goes? Or would you grab tightly on your hope and wait for someday that you could turn the whole situation around, even if it takes 6…9…12 months? Hope is easy to say, easy to feel at the beginning, but hard to grab and hold on at the end. While you do your work and pray for it to get better but it is still the same after days, weeks and months, the word ‘hope’ becomes ‘hopeless’. How do you keep holding on and looking forward to the light on the other end of the tunnel? When your circumstances don't match your dream and vision? You keep going. It isn’t easy to keep pressing and looking for hope in the pool of hopelessness. But when you find your happiness you would look back and say, “It worth it, it really worth it” No one has ever promised you the path will ever be easy, the path is full of heartbreaking or surprising problems but after what happened to you, you would turn back and say “I made it”, keep pushing yourself forward. It’s worth it. And my words to you are: No matter what happens, or no matter how painful it is, hold onto your hope, don’t settle, keep pressing forward, you can make it, you will make it, and the reward would be greater than pain. Here are some organisation that can help you: – Beyond Blue – Black dog institute – Reach out
Positive Psychology Website
by Chloe, Maya, Lily and Hana (Year 9 Psychology Students)
