Somerset College Years 5, 6 and 7 came away from the A.B. Paterson Gold Coast Public Speaking Competition last week, with the Winner’s Trophy for the fifth year in a row. Following speeches given in class, optional presentation at the Somerset Junior School Public Speaking Evening and then selection for the A.B. Paterson Competition, our students were well-rehearsed and presented their speeches with information, interest and humour.
Particular commendations go to:
Year 5 Finalists
Year 6 Finalists
Year 7 Finalists
All Somerset students contributed to this wonderful result while at the same time developing their very important public speaking skills.
My experience whilst away on camp was astonishing. As soon as I arrived at Noosa North Shore Retreat, my jaw dropped! The outstanding habitat felt just right.
Next thing I knew, the announcement of activity groups and cabin groups began. I nervously prayed to get a good cabin group. I was relieved that I had my friends, and by then, I knew this adventure would be one of the best journeys I’ve been on.
Patiently, I finally arrived at Cabin 11, and tucked into making myself feel right at home. A few hours passed and it was time to scurry into my afternoon activity which was rock-climbing and mountain-biking. It was for sure, one of the best journeys and I was definitely expecting more.
In a blink of an eye, we all dined. As we ate dinner, we all jabbered about our activities and how much fun they had been.
Before I knew it, we were back on the bus waving and thanking the instructors for being there for us. I waved goodbye to the kangaroos hopping around. I waved goodbye to the beautiful place I had stayed, which I had called home for three days.
On arrival back at school, I jumped into mum’s hands, relieved I was back home. Back to where I belonged.
I love art, I have since a very young age. It is therapeutic, relaxing, fun, captures moments, a valuable skill, and a way to express myself when I don’t have the words to do so. However, some children aren’t fortunate enough to experience this. Only 319km away, lies one of the most disadvantaged areas in Australia. Cherbourg, formerly Baramba Aboriginal settlement is a rural town in Queensland, home to 1,269 people.
A group of friends and I decided to try to help change this. We all donated new art supplies and culminated almost 2500 individual items. After collection, I catalogued the items and boxed them up to give to Katura Halleday and her mother Kyron, who drove them all the way up to the Cherbourg community. Katura was the recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Leadership Award who founded the ‘8x8 to educate’ social enterprise and I was so fortunate to have met her during the d’Arcy Doyle Art Awards.
With the help of Ration Shed Museum, the building next to where the art classes are held, we hope to bring joy and give children an opportunity to immerse themselves in art like we are so lucky to be able to do every day.
There is still time to enter the 8x8 art award, which 100% of the proceeds go towards providing an education to the children of Developing Nations. Find out more at www.8x8toeducate.com.au
We would like to give you a gift
But it’s not the paint, paper or pens
Those things are part of it
But that’s not where it ends
There is magic in every brush stroke
A story in every line
A world in every drawing
That will stand the test of time
You have the power to create anything
Any person, place or thing
You can be transported into space
Or transformed into a king
So go create your masterpieces
There is so much to do
We hope you have lots of fun
Here’s a gift from us to you
Last weekend 12 of our Spartan Elite Athletes competed at the Queensland All Schools Athletics Championships (15 to 19 years) in Brisbane. Next week we have the same Championships for the (10 to 14 years) age groups and the following weekend we have the Pole Vault Championships. After a shortened schools competition programme due to COVID-19, this was an excellent opportunity for them to showcase the work they had been doing in training over the past months.
Overall, our Spartans won five Gold, two Silver and two bronze medals. This was an excellent result, considering we were missing several of our Year 12 students due to exams.
Girls
Boys
Luke Shirley Javelin 6th place 44.22m PB.
A special mention to our medallists, with Aspen Anderson winning double Gold in her first ever Track State Championships. Coming from an impressive Triathlon background, Aspen dominated the field and ran with great composure and confidence. Indie Seccombe has really started to find her way back to her best form winning the U20 3km, in a very strong performance. I’m sure we will see more of her over the coming Summer Season. Felix Jackson-King won Gold in the Triple Jump and Silver in the Long Jump in another impressive display of quality jumping. As our Athletics Captain for the past two seasons, Felix has been an outstanding performer for Somerset College.
Kade Reynoldson, at only his second attempt at the 400m hurdles, came away with the Gold medal and National Qualifying time, winning by the tightest margins of 0.01sec in what was a very exciting come-back victory. Kade also picked up the Bronze medal in the Javelin and an impressive PB in the 400m coming in fourth place. These performances by Kade set him up very well for the Queensland Multi Event Championships in December, where he will be competing in the Decathlon.
Sophie Clements picked up a silver medal in the Long Jump and a Bronze medal in the Triple Jump. Sophie has really improved her standard this year working hard to achieve these great results. Sophie will also be competing in the Multi Event Championships in December in the Heptathlon.
Overall, our Spartans performed extremely well and with the near completion of the resurfaced athletics track at school I’m sure we will see many more outstanding results in the coming years. Congratulations to all our Spartans who competed and represented Somerset College.
Our Spartans competed at the Champion Basketball Schools of Queensland Championships recently, held on the Gold Coast and in Logan. Somerset College fielded teams in all age groups, Sophomore (Year 7 to 8) and Junior (Year 9 to 10) and achieved brilliant results that will be remembered for years to come.
The CBSQ tournament is an heavily recruited event by American Universities and pathway for elite basketballers to showcase talents and represent their school and community with pride.
Our Junior Girls came home with the Gold in Division 3 with outstanding performance by all involved laying a great foundation for Somerset students in the future.
Another brilliant achievement was from the Sophomore Boys who also had great success gaining a Gold Medal in Division 2 and qualifying for the prestigious top 16 schools in Queensland for CBSQ 2022 a feat that has never been achieved by any Somerset Basketball team in the tournaments history.
The Sophomore Girls team also had a great tournament representing the college with pride whilst gaining a great sporting experience for our Spartans who came 8th for the second year in a row in a very competitive division.
To round out a great four days our Junior Boys won Bronze, battling injuries and fatigue to bring home the third Somerset Spartans medal for the tournament.
Although tournaments like this are about building culture and mateship for a program between students, showcasing sportsmanship and pride in the singlet, Somerset College should be very proud of the achievements of our students. Somerset College was the only program to achieve three medals, joining an exclusive club by winning two state shields for the tournament and definitely has announced itself as a progressive programme, "that plays the right way."
To our parent helpers Kelly Partridge, Tracey Longfield, Rebeka Hobson and Veronica Hosking your are all amazing and I thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to help the program.
The great English poet John Heywood once said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day but they were laying bricks every hour.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Somerset College students recently participated in the Queensland Junior Schools Cup Volleyball Tournament. The tournament was played over three days and attracts over 2000 students from all over the state. This year the students continued training after the APS season and throughout Term Three and Four in preparation for the event.
For the Year 7/8 Girls team this was the first time many of them have been involved in a volleyball tournament of this size. Working with Miss Garland, the girls showed amazing improvement in the months leading into the tournament. The girls came away from day one winless but started to show great improvement. Highlights included strong serving from Shay Anderson and Momo Takahata as well as brilliant scrambling defence from Amelie Millar-Martin. Over the next two days the girls continued to improve and were able to win two games against tough Brisbane schools. Jenna Lee and Aanika Soni were dominant at the net and Zara Hosking and Ella Jin showed great ball control. All of the girls impressed with their resilience and the spirit in which they played the game.
The Year 8 Boys team have also been training throughout Term Three and went into the tournament with high expectations. The boys advanced through the pool play section of the draw with three wins and a loss. Strong serving from Hamish Kennedy and Raiden Kyaw were a highlight of the team play backed up by great work from our defensive specialist, Carlito Lamont. Unfortunately, the boys stumbled with a loss late on Saturday to Holland Park which put them out of medal contention. The boys regrouped on Sunday finishing off strong with a win. Our setters, Lachie Mathieson and Jed Collofello controlled the game with Eason Wang and Luke Oishi showing a strong presence at the net. The team was led by Ethan Grocott.
A massive thanks to Isabelle Garland for coaching the girl’s team and Lauren Grocott for managing the team over the weekend. Also, a huge thank you to parents for all of their support throughout the campaign with early morning and late evening drop offs and pick-ups from training. A special thank you to Eli Mathieson for her support and organisation over the weekend.
Somerset College was finally set up to host its annual Orange Tennis Circuit on Sunday 24 October. The event had been building to be one of the biggest tournaments of any 10-year old’s calendar, but it eclipsed that when the OTC grew to the biggest of its kind in Australia for 2021.
A total of 74 competitors entered the event, 55 boys and 19 girls, making it the highest number of entries for any OTC in Australia. In anticipation of this event, 25 selfless Somerset students volunteered 10 hours of their time to umpire matches, set-up equipment and help run the BBQ. Without these students, the event would not have been possible.
Students and players began competing at 7.00am, with the temperature already hitting 28 degrees and 220 matches to be played, it was going to be a scorcher of a day. Players battled out their Fast 4 matches, one after another, with little to no rest in between, it really was a battle of the fittest. By 10.00am, a welcomed BBQ and drinks stall was in action, prompting the more than 150 person crowd to rush to the counter for their fix of sausages and Powerades.
The boys match got to the semi-finals by 11.00am and at this stage it was well over 30 degrees. The resilient volunteers held their ground, standing on the courts umpiring the matches regardless of the heat. The boys grand final match concluded around 1.00pm, with an external to Somerset player, Jasper Ten-Bohmer winning the division.
Girls matches kicked off around 12:30pm with temperatures of 33 degrees, it was going to be a tough day for some. Our brave Spartans battled it out in the heat & held strong whilst producing some amazing tennis. Our own Spartan, Stacey Yang, finished up second in the girl’s division after a near one-hour match, making it a great end to the event for Somerset.
With 23 Somerset students competing, 25 volunteers and four staff members, it really was a Spartan event. Even at the conclusion of the event, the amazing volunteers stuck around until near 5.00pm to help pack down the marquee tents, BBQ stall and court equipment.
We cannot thank the below students enough for their help.
Thank you to all the parents, students and volunteers for making this event the highlight of our calendar and also the biggest OTC in Australia! We look forward to offering the event again next year.
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