Links
We are incredibly proud to share that the Remembrance Day tributes held at Footscray High School this year were a meaningful and respectful recognition of those who have served in armed conflicts. The tribute was a poignant moment for our entire school community to reflect on the sacrifices made by so many.
We are incredibly proud of our students for their leadership and thoughtful participation, and we look forward to continuing to build on this tradition in the years to come.
Jillian English
Acting Executive Principal
SPELD’s Literacy in Mathematics PD
Last week a group of Maths and Literacy teachers, tutors and integration aids from all campuses joined together to attend SPELD’s Literacy in Mathematics PD with Prof. Sarah Powell from the University of Texas.
There they took a deep dive into Maths Vocabulary and worked practical strategies to enhance students’ understanding of mathematical terms and concepts. Attending a PD in a large group is incredibly beneficial for our teachers as it allows them to hit the ground running back at school and start planning interventions with a shared vocabulary. The teachers and staff involved aim to create a framework to be used from Years 7-12 to support students to unpack worded Maths problems to help remove common potholes into which students stumble. Stay tuned for updates!
In Term 4, 2024, families with a child enrolled in a government school from Prep to Year 12 in 2025 will receive the one-off $400 School Saving Bonus.
The $400 School Saving Bonus provides families with support for education-related costs, such as school activities and/or school uniforms and textbooks.
The School Saving Bonus is not available for full-fee international students, home schooled students, TAFE students and students attending kindergarten in 2025.
The Department of Education will email you with your $400 School Saving Bonus and access to an online system. Please check your junk mail regularly to make sure you do not miss an important email.
To learn more about the School Saving Bonus, refer to the School Saving Bonus Information sheet for government school parents and carers or visit vic.gov.au/school-saving-bonus.
Two of our Year 7 Community STEAM groups are conducting a supply drive to collect items for people experiencing homelessness.Until the 27th of November there will be donation boxes in the front offices at Footscray High School junior campuses.Pilgrim Campus – 1 Pilgrim St Seddon (entry on Albert St)Barkly Campus – 298 Barkly St FootscrayThey are accepting donations for 2 organisations, 300 Blankets and McAuley Community Services for Women.300 Blankets will take: Blankets, Aerosol deodorants, New underwear, New socks, Men’s Track Pants, and Men’s jackets and hoodies.McAuley will take: Toiletry items, Sanitary items for women, Sensory toys, Arts and crafts supplies, Books, and New kitchen utensils. For further details please take a look at the students site:https://sites.google.com/footscray.vic.edu.au/homelessness-300-blankets/our-aim
This year Footscray High School began teaching senior Ancient History for the first time, with two enthusiastic classes at Year 11. Students studied Ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), and early Ancient Egypt. Both these civilisations relied on rivers for transportation, and with little available timber, used hollow water reeds to build boats.
We finished up the year with a competition at The Farm to see who could build the boat with the strongest cargo capabilities. Classmates worked individually or in groups to use whatever organic materials were available. In the end, two boats were able to carry the cargo of rocks and glass without sinking on the frog pond! Many of these students are looking forward to continuing their studies in a full class at Year 12, examining society and conflicts in Rome and Greece.
This week, the year 7 science classes have started work on their Physics assignments. Using their understanding of forces, groups will need to use the provided materials to craft two parachutes that safely carry their passengers (an egg) to the ground. The aim of this experiment is to investigate the impact of different design choices on the falling speed of the parachute. Students will need to think critically and creatively about the impact their designs have upon the forces at play.
This term, year 8 science classes have been investigating the field of geological sciences. This week, they have looked into the types and classifications of rock. Using the provided classification keys, students worked to identify various samples. Students used their knowledge of appearance, mineral composition, and hardness to confirm the mystery rocks.
In week 8, students will be travelling to the Melbourne Museum to visit the rock exhibits and view the 3D Volcanoes IMAX exhibit.
During Weeks 6 and 7 Brainstorm Productions presented their student wellbeing performance ‘Sticks & Stones’ for Year 7 and 8s at our Pilgrim and Barkly campus. ‘Sticks & Stones’ is a live theatre experience that explores different forms of bullying and aggression, and encourages respect, assertiveness and conflict resolution at school, at home and online. Students are challenged to consider the impact of their behaviour and develop strategies for managing emotions, seeking help and building respectful relationships.
‘Sticks & Stones’ is part of our student wellbeing curriculum and has been developed by education and mental health professionals. This engaging theatrical experience uses humour, soundscapes and physical theatre to capture students’ attention and inspire them to make positive changes. Key themes are followed up in the post-performance Q&A and classroom resources, to keep the important conversations going.
Brainstorm Productions is one of Australia’s most experienced and respected theatre in education companies, performing to over 260,000 students every year. They offer a range of programs to help schools nurture healthy and harmonious environments, addressing issues such as mental health, online safety, bullying and resilience, and are endorsed by the eSafety Commissioner as a Trusted eSafety Provider. Learn more about Brainstorm Productions by visiting their website (brainstormproductions.edu.au), or following them on Instagram (@brainstormproductions_), Facebook (@Brainstorm.Productions) or LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/brainstormproductions).
Senior Booklists now open for 2025 Kinnear Students
The 2025 senior Booklists are now available online from the JP BOOKS website.
Before placing any orders, please read through the instructions carefully, and make sure you have had confirmation about which subjects you will be in next year.
Please also remember that there is a $400 School Saving Bonus for each student, to help families pay for booklisted textbooks. Families should soon receive an email from the Department of Education with more information about how to use this bonus.
Junior Booklists for years 7, 8 and 9 will become available on Monday 2nd December.
For any questions about Booklists or orders, please contact our friendly booklist suppliers:
JP Books
1/355 Somerville Rd
Yarraville, 3013
Phone: (03) 9314 0529
Email: sales@jpbooks.com.au
Web: jpbooks.com.au
EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about our NEW News Database!
Our Library has just made a significant upgrade in how our students and staff access news articles for their schoolwork, with a subscription to Newsbank’s Access Australia database.
This supersedes our previous digital Age newspaper subscription and gives us fully searchable access to more than 760 Australian news sources including The Age, Herald Sun, The Australian and the Financial Review with archives from the 1980s to the present day.
Access Australia also provides the following features:
Our library team looks forward to introducing this new resource to our staff and students and helping them explore credible, vetted news sources to stay informed on issues related to business, politics, sports, culture, and more. Students can use Access Australia by visiting our Library’s News and Issues page, but will need to be logged in to their school accounts. Feel free to get in touch with a librarian if you have any questions.
From the Library Team.
We have a large staff profile here at FHS, and have welcomed several new staff members to the fold over the last couple of months. Jill has been a welcome addition as acting Executive Principal, but she is not the only new(er) addition to staff. The staff members who joined us very late in Term 3, and early term 4:
Blake Rogers, like Rob, started with us as a pre-service teacher working across all three Campuses. He showed his student-centred approach to the classroom and we snapped him up. Blake is taking a Health and PE load at the junior campuses.Rob Kelso is a name familiar to many of our staff and students across a range of campuses. He started with us as a Pre-service teacher at Kinnear, then moved to working as an Education Support staff member at the junior campuses. From late term 3 he joined us as a teaching staff member in the Arts Faculty. A person of many talents, Robert is teaching our Art classes but is also highly skilled in music and other areas.
A new face for term 4 is Mark Jenkin, who is our new technologist assistant. He comes to us with a wealth of experience in this area and we thank him for joining our technologies team. He is working across the three Campuses, with a focus on supporting the junior campus classes.
The ‘Differentiation for High Ability Student PLC’ contained eight teachers from a range of subject areas including Business studies, mathematics, junior English, Year 12 Media Studies and more. They audited the existing school measures used to support and extend our higher achieving students, and looked at a range of evidence – NAPLAN, Victorian Curriculum teacher judgement, ATOSS, student feedback, parent feedback, and enrolment data, to try to understand the experience and impact of school on higher ability students. They acknowledged that the school supports some high ability students using the VHAP program, and this PLC wanted to add to this to see how high ability students can be helped in every classroom. This PLC also examined the latest research and found Tomlinson’s Equaliser for Differentiation highly effective as a basis to begin our work. From this we trialled a range of strategies aimed at supporting the higher ability students specifically, and collected data to test their efficacy. What strategies did they try?
The team found that the strategies with the highest impact actively utilised student voice, offered choice in how students demonstrated their learning and included opportunities for students to apply their knowledge and skills in different contexts, including outside of the classroom had the best effects for high ability students (and stretched their other peers also.)
Finally, they shared these strategies with all Footscray High School teachers at the PLC Celebration Presentation and aim to continue to work to ensure that all teachers at Footscray have the tools to support our students.
Recently the Anaphylaxis, Asthma and Photographing, Filming, & Recording Students policies were reviewed as part of the mandatory and recommended review cycle process. All school policies are located on our school website here.
The Student Leadership Collective (SLC) is super excited to launch the Footscray High School house system for 2025! Our houses are Wurra Wurra (sky, blue), Yaluk (river, green) and Ngamayi (sun, yellow), with indigenous names supplied by the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation.
The SLC identified building a house system as their main priority early in the year after surveying students and finding overwhelming support for a house system (79% in favour) with indigenous names (78% in favour). Students believe the house system will improve unity and connection across campuses and year levels, build strong relationships between students and staff, and increase engagement by providing more reasons and ways for students to succeed and connect with school.
We have our first house meetings this Tuesday (Nov 19) and the house competition will kick off immediately next year with the swimming carnival in Week 2. We can’t wait to see a sea of blue, green and yellow! Student house captains at each campus will work with our teacher house heads to make new events and traditions: with the philosophy that this competition and events are made by students, for students. Alongside sporting events, the house competition may include cultural, musical, debating, community and other events. In Term 4, the victorious house will claim the inaugural House Cup and the shiny new silverware!
We welcome feedback, parent engagement and ideas to make our new house system a success for many years to come.
SLC at work building the house system.