The Somerset College House Plays Festival strives to provide an opportunity for students to participate in a friendly, supportive, and yet competitive theatrical experience.
The House Plays Festival is our annual Inter-House play event. Two Year 11 or 12 students from each House assume roles as co-directors and are responsible for selecting scripts, auditioning, and directing their entry for the festival.
In 2022, the festival will occur at the end of Week 4, Term One. Because of this, auditions will occur in Week 7, Term Four, 2021, Monday 15 to Friday 19 of November.
The link to the audition sign-up app is located on the Performing Arts Schoolbox page, or you can access it by clicking the link below. Please ensure you select the correct House and click on the name of the student director. You will then be able to select a time and enter your name. Two students from the same House are welcome to audition together.
Click HERE to audition.
Auditions will be held in The Suzanne Roberts Centre for Performing Arts. Simply arrive in the foyer and you will be directed to the audition room.
If you are unable to attend an audition on campus in Week 7, we welcome video auditions as well! Please email Mrs Anna D’Arcy – Assistant Head of Performing Arts at adarcy@somerset.qld.edu.au and she can assist you with this process.
The House Plays Festival audition process is open to all 2022 Somerset students who are in Year 7 to 12. Current Year 6 students and students who are about to commence their learning journey at the College are encouraged to get involved!
All students who audition receive points for their House. The festival prides itself in fostering positive relationships between all year levels at the college and is a wonderful way to meet new people and (of course) explore a love of performing.
It is with great pleasure that we introduce the House Play Directors for 2022:
Andrews House – Rishi Veeramachaneni and Megan Cattell
Franklin House – Daniel Harvey and Samuel Rigby
Laver House – Amaani Bhasin and Ethan Robinson
Starkey House – Julia Puhalla and Hannah Zubair
Veivers House – Thomas Kilmartin and Louis Ladbrook
Our directors look forward to welcoming many students into the audition room next week!
Congratulations, exams are over and we are nearing our well-deserved summer holidays. We are delighted to see so many students across all years achieve their academic goals this year.
For those who did not quite manage to suffice to all their goals, don’t worry. This is a learning experience, and by strategising for improvement, you can all achieve high success. We highly encourage everyone to take the time to reflect on how you have applied yourself this year, and what changes you could implement to improve your studies in years to come. What did you do well? What went wrong? What did you enjoy about your learning? What steps can you make to create a more productive learning environment?
Holidays are only a couple weeks away! Make sure you take time to relax and rejuvenate after a long year of hard work. Spend time with your friends and family. Christmas is right around the corner! Make sure to buy your loved ones well thought out and heartfelt presents. This is a time to enjoy yourself and make long lasting memories.
Although you should focus on revitalising during this two-month break, you should also use your time to get a head-start on next year’s subject matter. Don’t leave any homework to the last minute! This will cause unnecessary stress, which is never an enjoyable way to end your break.
For Years 7 to 10: Make sure to check Schoolbox for any assigned work or holiday reading.
For students entering Year 10: Start working on your Personal Project now! This will alleviate so much stress from the busy year that lies ahead.
For students entering Year 12: You are about to begin your final year of high school! It is important that you complete all of your assigned holiday work and study for the assessments approaching fast in Term One. Let’s start our final year on a high note!
To the graduating Class of 2021, congratulations! You have just finished your final external assessments, marking the end of your schooling journey! Thank you all for being fantastic leaders and role-models for the entire school. Make sure to take a well-deserved break before embarking on your next adventure. Good luck!
Finally, a huge thank you to Roy and Momoe. We are honoured to take on this role. Your diligence will be so difficult to match. We cannot wait to see all the places you will go.
Throughout 2021, Year 11 students again participated in the Mudgee Kids Programme, where groups of about 20 students visited Mudgeeraba Special School each week. The connection between our two schools has been ongoing now, for over 12 years.
Thankfully, the ongoing pandemic did not interfere with our attendance in 2021. We shared ourselves between both junior and senior classes, assisting the classroom teacher by working alongside the students in their classroom activities. The initial visit was confronting but by our second visit we were much more ‘at home’ having learned a bit about the Mudgeeraba students.
Recently, we received letters from the Mudgee Kids talking about what they would like for Christmas. We all responded to one letter each by creating Christmas cards to send to the students we connected with and help spread the joy of Christmas.
Last Wednesday morning, Mudgeeraba Special School hosted a community partnership breakfast that both Darcy and I were fortunate to attend. We were served a delicious breakfast by the students and listened to guest speaker, Inspector Dan Bragg from the Queensland Police Service. Principal Colleen shared the wonderful work her students are doing in the community, while Inspector Bragg inspired us on leadership lessons through his experience with QPS.
Working with the students from Mudgeeraba Special School has truly been an honour and we’ll miss this opportunity next year. We know the students in Year 11 will relish the opportunity next year, as much as we have!
Somerset Debating has seen yet another vastly successful year. We entered the most teams of any school in the competition (17), and 10 of those teams progressed to Round 16; also more than any other school! Four teams made it to the quarter finals, a great feat given the highly competitive nature of the Gold Coast Debating competition.
Our most successful team, however, was our Year 8 Junior A Team 3, who finished Runners-up in their Grand Final at Bond University. Consisting of Emily Nickels, Noa Chester-Haviv, Ayla Chirathivat-Geralds, Mia Richards and speaker of the night Abigail Brinkworth, the team faced off against King's Christian College Pimpama as the affirmative in a gruelling debate over the topic: Children need more protection from the media. This is particularly outstanding given four out of the five team members had never done debating before this year! Well done, girls.
The future is bright for Somerset Debating, with a particularly strong presence in our Year 7 and Year 8 cohorts (with five and six teams respectively!) We cannot wait to see what they have in store.
Throughout their time with Somerset Debating, the debaters learn teamwork, communication, confidence, and many more real-life skills, all whilst having fun and smashing the competition! We have also had a very strong leadership cohort this year. For the first time ever, we appointed three Debating Captains: Nada Wilson, Antonio Lin, and Ella Kirk. It has been a pleasure being this year’s Debating Captain, and I, along with my fellow captains, could not have asked for a more eager, engaging, and talented group of young debaters to mentor.
After an incredibly successful 2021 season, Somerset Debating is only getting bigger and better! We cannot wait to see where the future takes us.
Recently eight of our Spartan Junior Athletes competed at the Queensland All Schools Athletics Championships (10 to 14 years) in Brisbane. In very hot and windy conditions throughout the event, our Spartans performed very well, especially after several of them had also competed in the very successful Junior APS Carnival only two days earlier and were very fatigued.
Overall, our Spartans won two Gold and two Bronze medals and achieved personal bests. The two days were very long, and the athletes prepared well for each of their competitions.
Girls
Ava Stephens – (u15) 90mH 4th 14.66sec PB; Long Jump 4th 5.04m PB; Shot Put 10th 8.06m; 100m 13.39sec PB; 200m 28.23sec PB.
Noku Mhlanga – (u14) Triple Jump 10th 9.31m; 100m 14.39sec
Sophie Colahan – (u12) 100m 12th 14.33sec; 200m 10th 31.03sec
Boys
Cru Scott – (u15) 1500m 3rd Bronze 4.22min; 3km 3rd Bronze 9.17min
Ryan Hisco – (u15) 400m 8th 56.58sec; 800m DQ (5th 2.09min)
Patrick Kelly-Correa – (u14) Javelin 10th 25.88m PB; Long Jump 3.93m
Roneel Khatri – (u14) High Jump 10th 1.40m PB
Aden Webber – (u13) Discus 1st Gold 41.89m PB; Shot Put 1st Gold 12.27m PB
Aden Webber, Cru Scott and Ava Stephens all had stand out performances in more than one event. Winning medals and placing in the top few in the entire state is an amazing achievement and having only a single competition in the lead up to these Championships, shows us the commitment to their training they have had over the past months. Congratulations to all our Spartan athletes!
The next major competition on the athletics calendar is the upcoming Queensland Multi Event Championships on December 18 to 19. At this event we will have approximately 12 of our elite young Spartans competing against the best in the state in either the Heptathlon (seven events) or the Decathlon (10 events). If you are interested in participating, please contact me as soon as you can.
Two Under 9 Somerset teams qualified for the School Futsal Titles in 2021. The tournament took place on Friday 5 to Sunday 7 November.
On Friday morning we left Somerset College, with Coaches Maarten and Nigel, and our Volunteer Coaches James and Sean, who made sure the students had their seatbelts on and behaved themselves well during the journey to Nissan Arena.
On arrival in Brisbane, the students prepared for their first games.
Under 9 - Year 3
The Year 3s could not wish for a better start of the tournament. With two wins out of two games they took the lead in the league table. On day two, the boys had one win and one loss but remained top of the table. They qualified for the Semi Finals. We saw great work from Benedict Thompson, Andrew Blatchford, Edward Hassett, Hugo Hasselle, Alex Pourre, Henry Pevy, Izaak Barclay and Vaughan Furlong.
Under 9 – Year 4
The Year 4s had a very difficult time each day. The boys had one win and one loss on day one. The second day they played just one game and won! On Sunday they played one more game, before entering the finals. Somerset lost this game and finished in fourth place with a total of two wins and two losses.
Semi Finals
In the Semi Finals, the two Somerset teams played against each other. This was one of the best games of the tournament. The two teams played impressive futsal, showing great teamwork and sportsmanship. The game was very even with both teams scoring many goals. It was the Year 4s who scored a goal more and qualified for the Final. The Year 3s maintained their competitive edge each day. All players can be proud of how they represented The College over the weekend.
Finals
In the grand finale, the Year 4s were very disciplined. Coaches Sean and Maarten reminded the team about their positions and set plays. This worked great and resulted in some fantastic goals. The Spartans played better than the opposition and earning a well-deserved win. Congratulations to William Baillie, Danny Wang, Zhander Griffiths, Harper Loon, Oliver Ng, Connor Millar-Martin, Max Bowden and Paxton Stewart.
Thank you all to all Parents, Coaches, and Volunteers for the support during the Futsal Titles.
This success is not a coincidence, the students who participated in the Futsal Titles are all students who play or have played for the Somerset Spartans Futsal Club. All Students have experience playing matches in the local club futsal leagues and are training under supervision from the Somerset Spartans Futsal Coaches.
For any questions about Football and Futsal, please contact our Head of Football and Futsal.
mdekruijf@somerset.qld.edu.au
For the final time this year, the Somerset red, orange, and green ball team made their way to KDV Sport to compete in the Future Stars Gala Day on Sunday, the 7th of November. This was the final event of the Future Stars series and was set to be a competitive day full of tennis.
Ailin Zhao and Evie Wilson lead the charge for our Spartans, representing Somerset in the Green Ball division. Being the toughest division, the girls yet again displayed some great doubles and teamwork skills, competing against some of the best green ball players on the Gold Coast. A great experience for our Spartans.
Having the youngest team in the Red Ball division, proved to be no problem for our young guns! Students Taya Liu, Flynn Ladbrook, Ava Johnson, and Dylan Kingston, Evie Kingston and Anya Woodthorpe displayed some great points, with parents commending players and parents for their great sportsmanship at their young age. This proved to be the case, with Dylan Kingston winning the Sportsmanship medal. A great way to start our younger Spartans' tennis career!
To round out the day, we had the Orange Ball division, which has been a successful area for our Spartans during 2021. Not only did our students win 22 out of their 25 doubles matches, but they were also able to clinch the Orange Ball division for 2021! Students Audrey Hilbert, Liam Seymour, Sam Hosking and Emma Zhu were awarded with medals and the Orange Ball Shield, with Audrey Hilbert also winning the Sportsmanship medal. A great way to finish off a great year of Orange Ball tennis!
Thank you to all our Somerset Parents for helping make this event possible, and to Michael Mitchell from KDV sport, who has been able to put this event together. We look forward to producing some more great results in the coming years!
Tennis Queensland hosted its annual Primary Schools Cup, 29 October. The Cup is a modified event which attracts schools from all over the hinterland, all with the hopes of succeeding to the prestigious state finals later in the year. Somerset College showed up in force, with 34 students, four coaches and six teams competing across three divisions!
Players started competing at 9.00am and the event was scheduled to finish at 3.00pm, so despite the shortened format of tennis, it was going to be an endurance event. Our Spartans fought hard throughout the day in the ‘Fast 4’ formatted matches for the Green and Orange Ball teams, whereas the Red Ball team competed in a slightly different format.
The Red Ball team fought off all the other schools in both boys and girls divisions, taking out the whole event! Of the 240 ‘mini matches’ the boys team played; they won an amazing 184 of them! The girl’s team pipped St Vincent’s in the finals by a mere two points, great to see our students could handle the pressure! Winning the event is a great achievement for our young Spartans and they now get a chance to compete in the state finals later this year. The Orange Ball boys’ team had some tough competition and unfortunately came short in the play-offs but finished up with a respectful third place. The Orange Ball girls team competed hard through the day and nearly caused a few upsets of more experienced teams, however also narrowly missed out of the play-offs, and ended up fifth. The Green Ball teams faced some formidable opponents and unfortunately missed out on the play-offs, having two of the teams’ best players suffer injuries, mere hours before the event, did not help their chances. Our mixed Green Ball team 1 finished up sixth on the day and the Green Ball 2 team finished up eighth . This division was particularly competitive this year, so we’re proud of what our Spartans achieved.
Overall, it was a great team event for our students and coaches. We now look ahead to the state finals held later this year. We thank you to all the students for their best efforts and look forward to entering the event again next year.
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