
Telephone: 9488 1900 • Fax: 9481 6135 • info@fitzroyhs.vic.edu.au • Falconer Street NORTH FITZROY 3068
Our TeamsSapphire Indigo Jet Scarlet (Post Compulsory)

December 2007

Principal’s Report - 18 December

Building Works

The early work has started in the gymnasium with the builders going through a demolition process at the moment. They will then construct new facilities in the roof line of the gym which will eventually be used as a physical education studio and instrumental music rooms. This work should be completed by the end of Term One.

VCE Results

Another milestone in the history of the school was achieved this week when students who completed Unit 3 and 4 units received their study scores from the VCAA. Each of these students was in Year 11 and chose to undertake a Year 12 subject in one of History (Revolutions), Studio Arts, National Politics and VET Multi Media. There were a range of results from the 40s to the mid twenties with all students striving to reach their highest possible potential result.

Congratulations to all the students who took on this challenge in Year 11. I am sure that they have learnt a lot about how to prepare for Year 12. Thanks also to parents, staff and community members who have supported the students during this year.

Staff farewells

We have a number of staff leaving at the end of the year and I take this chance to thank them for their work at the school.

Jaspreet and Marisa have been on leave this year and are now retiring and Helen Mutkins is moving to another school. All of these were with us when the school re-opened and put in a tremendous amount of work in establishing the ‘new’ Fitzroy High School. Helen’s work on the school productions has been exceptional and culminated in the brilliant final performance of ‘Blood Brothers’ last month.

Liz M has been helping students develop their multi media and art skills over the last two years and has helped many produce high quality work.

Mara is moving on to once again work in the hospitality industry. She has done a fantastic job in establishing the healthy eating canteen at the school and it is a benchmark that other schools aspire to.

Ragnar and Michael have filled in positions in Indigo and Sapphire for the second half of this year and I thank them for the work they have done.

Thank you to all these staff for their positive contributions to Fitzroy High School.

Teams in 2008

There will be some changes to the leaders and composition of teams for next year.

Darryn is relinquishing the role of team leader of Sapphire but will remain as a teacher in the team. I am pleased to say that Kellie will be returning to us and taking on the role of Sapphire team leader.

John D is taking long service leave during term one and Tom R will be the team leader of Jet when he is away. When John returns he and Tom will share the leadership role of this team.

Scarlet team will expand with the first ‘official’ Year 12 group being added.

Change to structure of the day

The length of the school day will remain the same next year with an 8:45 a.m. start and 3:00 p.m. finish but there will be a minor internal change. Advisory will take place before recess whilst the first 90 minutes of the day will be Session 1.

Holidays wishes

I wish all families a joyful and restful holiday period. School begins for students on Wednesday January 30, 2008.

Tim Fitzgerald

A message from the Student Representative Council

Dear students, teachers, parents and members of the school community,

Recently the School has reformed our Student Representative Council and have held elections for the new student government. We have also held elections for the SRC Executive and the results are as follows: Sean Powers was elected as Treasurer, Sea Tirris was elected as Secretary, Oscar Alaska as Vice President and me (Monty Ellis) was elected as President.

Over the past term, many productive and important ideas and opinions about the School have been discussed within the SRC and I am proud to say that the new student government will be working towards not only giving the students a chance to voice their opinions, but also the opportunity to make a truly positive impact on the School and the larger community.

Before this can be realised, however, the SRC and student body are required to write and legitimise a constitution by which the SRC will be run. The draft, which was written and approved by the SRC, is attached to this newsletter and I would encourage all students and parents to read and discuss the constitution over the summer break.

If all goes according to plan, we hope to have the constitution voted on by the student body during the first week back to school. We are extremely excited about the future of the SRC and the School and look forward to making Fitzroy High School all that it can be.

If you have any questions or issues you would like to direct to the SRC I would be happy to receive them by email at ellisw@fitzroyhs.vic.edu.au.

Monty Ellis, President.

Click on the following link to view proposed SRC constitution.

Kitchen Garden Launch - A great success

Last Wednesday evening the launch of the Fitzroy High School kitchen garden was held. During the day we worked hard to have the garden looking wonderful, and it was worth it, because many members of the school and local community turned up to celebrate with us!

The night was a great success, and a really positive and joyful way of sharing this fantastic green space. Guests enjoyed the delicious wine, pizza, pastries and cakes that were donated to us – as well as listening to some lovely live music – and were thoroughly impressed by the transformation that had taken place.

In addition, we had some inspiring words from the lovely Vasili Kanidiadis from Vasili’s Garden, who talked about the importance of getting kids involved in sustainable, organic gardens, and urged us to allow the vegies to take over the entire field behind the gym. We wish!

A wonderful night was had by all, and we continue to encourage anyone who would like to come in and see the garden to visit us next year. Please look closely at the page of sponsors included in this week’s newsletter so that you can support the fantastic businesses that have supported us.

Briony O’Keeffe

Working in the garden has been a great experience. I loved going down to the Garden every Wednesday and helping out. It’s kind of scary looking at how much we have done in only 12 weeks. Before we started working on the garden it was just a patch of grass and dirt, but now it’s a real garden filled with wonderful food. It’s great to know that our hard work will be enjoyed by others.

This garden will give the canteen great fresh food. I hope this will still be a PLT next year because it’s been so much fun.

The Garden has been a great success, the launch was fabulous. Many people came there was food drinks a small band playing, and even Vasili came (from Vasili’s Garden) to say a few words. The kitchen Garden would have to be the highlight of this year.

Josh D

Sapphire Team Night of the Notables

On 5 December and 6 December Sapphire Team ran their Night of the Australian Notables. These ‘Presentation Evenings’ saw students dressed in the clothes (see photo below) of a famous and worthy Australian of their choice, and with a visual display to support them, they welcomed guests and in conversation, using the first person, shared your knowledge.

They had quite some time to research their notables and develop their displays. After a grand entrance, the ‘call of the notables’, each student stayed ‘in character’ for an hour on the night, and accurately answered questions from parents and guests.

In completing this study each student:

-used thinking and organisational tools to carefully choose a notable
-researched the life of their notable
-compiled a 100-word mini-biography
-gave an oral presentation progress report
-produced an invitation as his or her notable
-developed a series of relevant and thoughtful open-ended questions
-designed a visual display about the notable
-performed as his or her notable on the Presentation Night

Darryn Kruse

Challenge Camp 2007

What a great success the Challenge Camp 07 was. Students from three schools, Fitzroy High School, Melbourne Girls College and Princes Hill Secondary College, embarked on a journey across Melbourne, Phillip Island (Glen Forbes) and Mt. Buller (Mirimbah) over two and a half weeks and took part in many different activities.

The students lead the organisation of days, cooked and prepared all of their own food and worked in teams to achieve success. Each night the students were required to sit silently for 30 minutes and reflect on their day and the challenges they were confronted with, here are some snippets:

Day 1 - 7 November

Today was the beginning of the ‘Challenge Experience’, with some introductory games, exercising co-operation and teamwork skills. We then moved onto the Amazing Race, organising the teams and discussing the rules for the day. My group members were Josh P, Josh S, Liv, Bella, Ellen and of course myself. Our group worked well throughout the majority of the day, working well together and agreeing on decisions when put on the spot. With some help from Sawyer’s phone and the directory we completed most of the questions. Upon arrival at the final checkpoint we allowed some rest time for the teams, then headed for Fitzroy High where we would sleep for the night.

Once we sorted everything out and unpacked our beds, it was time to create some fire art which we would burn later that night. Next was dinner, which was good for me because I was starving, we had pizza at some restaurant which name eludes me. Now I remember it was La Porchetta, that’s what I just heard from Josh, unfortunately I can’t find a rubber so I will just keep writing.

After dinner we headed back to Fitzroy High to begin the burning of the art. Ours was a massive disappointment, it took ages to light and was really small. Now I am here writing in my journal, but the thing I will remember about this day the most is all the free slurpees.

Tom W

Day 2 - 8 November

After completing the amazing race at Melbourne Girls College we went rock climbing. Rock climbing was quite hard, particularly the climbing part. Belaying wasn’t too hard, just hard to attach your harness. You really had to trust your partner. Luckily I was with Emely, whom I trusted completely.

Eleanor D

In the morning we got into our amazing race groups and we got some new tasks. We travelled to Flinders Street then went over to Federation Square. We got a group photo taken by a highpoint guy as a task, got some brochures, a free iced tea and left for Melbourne Girls College.
From there we went to the rock climbing centre. I was O.J’s buddy, we started off small then got to the hard ones (for us). The last one I did was the hardest and when I got near the top it was hard and my arms felt like jelly. The harnesses were really uncomfortable. When we got back we shot some movies, ours wasn’t made properly so only one clip was shown, it was about thinking of a movie.

Lachy P

Week One

The first part of Challenge Camp was an urban-based three days. We spent these in the city doing everything from rock climbing to the three running teachers (Tom, Bec and Ned) version of the Amazing race or ‘The Melbourne Challenge’. These three days were spent as a group whereas all the other time we were to spend was in separate groups. On day one we met at Princess Hill and proceeded from there to Princess Park for the start of ‘The Melbourne Challenge’. We had to do/get things to win points. Whoever got the most points got a prize. There were some really nice people in my group of 6 and many people that were in my group of 24 would know Hannah.

Anyway, second day we went rock climbing which was really fun. Lots of people got wedgies. Then we went to Richmond pool on day three and did races. We played soccer before and my team won. LEGENDS! All in all the urban experience was awesome…

Jack F

Day 4 - 12 November

I arrived at Melbourne Girls College at around about 9 and met up with the rest of the Glen Forbes group and got set to depart. We didn’t hit the road until around 11 and drove to Cranbourne where we stopped to get some food for the rest of our stay at Glen Forbes. We left Cranbourne at 12:30 and arrived at Glen Forbes at about 1 and we were told that we could wander around and get a mental map of the camp.

After we got a mental map we were told to set up our tents and then get ready for a bit of a walk to whereabouts unknown to us. We arrived at the top of this large hill at 4:30 and we had a look at the great view of Phillip Island and we were asked to make a guess of where Melbourne was and I guessed just about the complete opposite.

We then hopped on the bus and got back to base and played some sports then I hit the showers. After a bit more sports we were told to come inside where they told us that we had to make up an act for ‘Red Faces’ that we would be performing on Thursday. We then practiced for about an hour then we were told to get our reflective journals and come inside.

Oska J-W

Day 6 - 14 November

Today we left around 9:30 and headed off to Cowes, Philip Island. For the first two hours half the group wandered around Cowes and then built sand sculptures on the beach, while the other group did sea kayaking. When we did go sea kayaking it was really tiring on your arms and stomach but it was really fun. After sea kayaking we went down to Cape Woolamai and did a 6km walk along the Cape. Afterwards we went and sat on the beach and wrote poetry, and then we came home and had burritos for dinner. That night we shared our poems around the camp fire.

Esther W

Day 10 - 20 November

I woke up at about 5:30 by accident and couldn’t sleep so I just walked around until other people got up. After breakfast we did snorkelling and I saw this massive stingray that was hiding in the sand. We then went to Churchill Island and did a walk around the island while looking for birds and feathers and I think my team did really well at that.

I took some good photos on my camera today but my favourite part of the day today was when we did beach sports such as relays, piggyback races and other running games. It’s now starting to get a bit wet. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Reuben

Day 11 – 21 November

On the 3rd day at Mirrimbah we got ready and drove to the base of a nearby mountain, Mt. Timbertop. When we got there the climbing track was closed from fires that had been in the area last year and had damaged the track. We still climbed it though because we knew that it was safe enough if we were careful. It was only a 2km walk but it was really, really, really steep and it took us ages. Eleanor and I were at the front of the group and we thought we had got to the top and we were so happy and we called out to the group but it actually wasn’t the top and when we could see there was more it was disappointing. We finally got all the way to the top and because we were so high up the top was in a cloud and it was very cold and we could hardly see anything.

The climb back down was also very hard and it had started to rain which made it not only extremely steep and rocky but slippery too. We all fell over a few times and it was a relief to get to the bottom. When we reached the bottom they told us we had to walk for another 2 or 3 hours to get to a river where the bus would meet us. The walk was long and muddy but it was fun. We drove to a different part of the river and some people swam but it was freezing. After that we went back to camp for dinner and had free time until dinner.

Georgina

Italian News

Earlier this year our Year 10 students participated in a scholarship for the Federation of Sicilians in Australia. The scholarship involved the students writing a 1000 word essay on culture and arts in Sicily. On Sunday the 2nd of December the majority of the students with Pauline, Micaela and I attended a presentation ceremony at Melrose Melbourne at Tullamarine. We enjoyed a lovely lunch with the presence of the Consul General of Italy and the President of the Federation of Sicilians, amongst other distinguished guests.

Congratulations to Harry Buchanan-Standish, Megan L, Felix N, Max O, Sean P, John R, Sea T and Zsa Zsa V for receiving Certificates of Encouragement.

A special mention goes to Julian B and Stella W for receiving Certificates of Merit.

Thank you to all the students for their participation and enthusiasm for the Scholarship.

Olie Balestra

February - March 2007

October - December 2006

Telephone: 9488 1900 • Fax: 9481 6135 • info@fitzroyhs.vic.edu.au • Falconer Street NORTH FITZROY 3068