The following is from the Prep Class of 2010, the Senior Class of 2022, who knitted a scarf for the Headmaster.
The scarf is one of the Headmaster's most treasured possessions and features on House Carnival days where it always attracts many comments and enquiries.
Thank you Ethan R, Lauren C, Lauren M, Ella P, Sam R, Kade R, Sophie V, Joe W, Angus M, Jackson M, Mackenzie C, James T, and Debby K for making it to Yr 12 and making the scarf way back in 2010. And thanks to the indomitable Mrs Copperwaite.
The Class of 2022 celebrated the commencement of their final year of school with an official Investiture Lunch on the Quad earlier this term. The Year 12 students enjoyed a picnic lunch in the sun, followed by the presentation of their Senior rings, ties and iconic jerseys, from our College Headmaster.
To commemorate the occasion, students had fun posing for photos on the Quad, captured by the College drone!
We wish the class of 2022 the best of luck, as they complete their final year of schooling at Somerset.
Under the mentorship of Ms Janine White and Mrs Lola McLaughlin, our Year 6 Captains have begun the year with weekly meetings to build both leadership skills and create a direction for their legacy in Year 6.
This programme is being built upon the great work done in Year 5 when students look at the model developed by Steven Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Now that they are in Year 6, all students have an opportunity to put into practice leadership skills that they have developed. Our Captains, elected by students and staff, are working with mentors in the areas of communication, role modelling, service and innovation.
We appreciate these young people who have stepped up to proudly take on their extra roles this year, while also beginning the MYP framework and subject specific curriculum.
Prep students are learning how emotions influence thinking and the importance of having a growth mindset to optimise learning potential. This week, students checked in and reflected upon their learning by using tokens to express their own feelings when completing a learning engagement.
They then looked at ways to best manage their emotions and talked about strategies to help move past undesirable feelings.
Congratulations to our Year 12 Drama students who have been working diligently in the Suzanne Roberts Centre for Performing Arts theatre almost every morning, lunch and afterschool this past fortnight. In doing so, we have taken more than 150 photos that will now form the basis of their IA2 (Part 2) Task.
In undertaking this task, our students have tackled some significantly mature subject matter in a range of nuanced and complex contexts. I have been impressed not only with their creativity, but more importantly, the collaborative and selfless manner in which that have worked (each giving of themselves and their time to aid the assessment of their peers).
A special thanks also to the other Year 12 student actors, Mr Sam Cash and Ms Jose Flynn for their assistance along the way!
As a teacher of history, I am always struck by the role of chance and circumstance in history. Consider Jared Diamond’s conversation with a Papuan mate of his that led him to write Guns, Germs and Steel – a great treatise on the role of chance and geography in the development of human history.
It is chance that leads us to know so much about the world’s early civilisations in the 'Land Between the Rivers' – Mesopotamia to the Greeks, The Ancient Near East, or perhaps more accurately Ancient South-West Asia. This region, although blessed by fertile soil, lacked metals, timber and stone. But it had one commodity in abundance: clay.
So when writing develops there – the first place in the world to develop it, they recorded their transactions, their laws, and heck, even their erotic poetry, onto clay tablets.
Clay has the ability to last for the few thousand years between them and us. If they had written on papyrus or other early writing materials, they would have decomposed (it’s only Egypt’s arid sands that preserved much of their papyri).
The writing system they used is called cuneiform – it consists of making wedge-shaped impressions into a clay surface. This system of writing lasted throughout much of Ancient South-West Asian history – being used to record a number of languages: Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian etc.
For the linguists among you, it is a logo-syllabic script – each character represents a syllable.
Our Year 10 History students in their study of the so-called, 'Cradle of Civilisation' were learning about cuneiform by writing it. They transcribed their names (as long as their names had no 'f's or 'j's) onto their own clay tablet.
One can’t help but feel the distance between those of the bronze age and us narrowing…
Somerset College entered a Mixed Touch Football team in the 2022 South East Queensland Schools Beach Gala Day. Our Somerset Spartan team consisted of students from Years 8 to 12. It was a day our Spartans could take on some of the best touch athletes in Queensland whilst having fun on the beautiful golden sands of Kirra's beach.
Our Spartans, after dropping their first game, re-couped and went on to winning the five remaining games of the day which included defeating the team that got the win earlier. They demonstrated some high-quality touch football prowess throughout the tournament which at times had the crowd on their feet.
One great aspect which was admired by the Queensland officials, was the Spartans willingness to not give up. They continued to challenge and raise their skill levels throughout the day.
All players are to be congratulated for their efforts – well done!
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