Well done to Andrews House, who won the 2023 Inter-House Swimming Carnival. It has been since 2009 that Andrews has placed first in swimming.
Congratulations to all swimmers who participated at the event which wrapped up this week.
If I asked you the first thing that comes to mind when I say the word “sharing”, most of you would probably remember what we were taught when we were little; “sharing is caring”. Even though this seems like a simple concept, there is so much more to gain from sharing than we think.
In many ways, sharing is really about kindness. Through sharing with others, we can take just a tiny amount of our own energy and devote it to someone else, to make their day just that little bit better. Whether we share a conversation, a hug, a snack, or some laughter, sharing just a few seconds of our time could just be what makes someone else’s day.
One of my favorite ways to share is through time. Whether this be two minutes striking a conversation with a teacher you don’t know so well, five minutes sharing a laugh with your friends, or even ten seconds to stop and simply say ‘hello’, sharing can bring so much genuine joy, from such a little amount of effort.
As we cross the halfway mark of what I'm sure we can all agree has been a very busy term, it is so important that we are there for each other. We should remember that we’re all in the same boat, sharing the same feelings, emotions, stress and thoughts – something I personally seem to notice can get easily forgotten as we get a little overwhelmed.
So, in those times you may feel isolated, remember that the hundreds of people surrounding you are not so different, and not so far away. Because if we all remember to share just that little bit of energy or that little bit of time, we can be reminded of our connection to each other, and the impacts our actions have on the community.
The Year 5 gold rush experience was amazing! We were greeted by a trooper (a police officer on horseback), and he sent us down to a station where a lady stole Evie Ladbrook’s tomatoes! There were so many fun activities to do, such as, panning for gold, roleplaying, tent making, bargaining at the general store, and searching for bush rangers. As we were walking around, we saw bakeries, tents and more with some of our names on them!
We went to a general store and were haggling and bargaining for cheap prices. Some were shopkeepers, and some were customers, then we took turns. We used shillings and pounds for selling gold, and the general store items. 6 people got chosen to make some damper and got covered in flour by Mischievous Mishelly! They served the damper after 45 minutes, with golden syrup. It was delicious! We did tent-making in groups of six to eight people. It was a race to make our tents and put them up. Straight after tent-making, we were searching for bush rangers and there were clues around the whole campus as in red letters scattered around, and you would find 6 then guess the bush ranger that your group got.
Everyone had so much fun on this gold rush excursion. The Year 5s next year will have so much fun time on this excursion!
Watch more from the Gold Rush in Episode 3 of Somerset Stream.
On Wednesday 15 February, Somerset College hosted the annual Senior APS Swimming Carnival and this year was a great event. Our Spartans faced some really tough competition pushing themselves to the limits and came back with some truly outstanding individual results. Somerset had five of our students earn age champion medals which is an outstanding achievement.
There were quite a few records broken too. Milla Jansen set new records in both the Open Girls 100-metre Freestyle and 50-metre freestyle events, and Holly Hembling broke the 16 Girls 50-metre Breaststroke record. On top of that, Somerset also managed to break two medley relay records. The first was the 16 year old Girls team including Sasha Henrison, Holly Hembling, Bessie Dear, and Abigail Brinkworth as well as the open girls with Milla Jansen, Kyla Brown, Avie Rounsley, and Skye Laube.
By the end of the day, Somerset College placed third in the 13-year-old girls' division, third in the 13-year-old boys, first in the 14-year-old boys, second in the 15-year-old girls, first in the 16-year-old girls, second in the 16-year-old boys, first in the Open Girls, and second in the Open Boys. It was a real team effort and the girls received second place overall, while the boys earned third place overall - an outstanding achievement.
In the end, Somerset College came in second overall, missing out on the top spot by less than 40 points. This is Somerset’s best result in many, many years and who knows, could lead into victory in 2024!
We couldn't be prouder of our Spartans, and we want to extend a huge thank you to Mrs Candice McKenna and all the staff who made the carnival possible. You truly outdid yourselves! Go Spartans!
Recently 22 of our Tennis Spartans competed at the Inter-Schools Tennis Challenge. This event was a doubles competition which saw our teams competing against 11 different schools on the Gold Coast. Our teams were split into the Junior Division consisting of students in Years 4 to 6 and the Middle Division, which had students in Years 7 to 9. Somerset had the most amounts of teams submitted at this event and came back with some impressive results.
In the Junior’s division, three out of our four teams out of a total of 58 teams made it through their groups and progressed into the final rounds. Students Audrey Hilbert and Stacey Yang finished at the top of their table, narrowly losing in the quarter finals. In the boys, we had a Somerset face-off between students Henry Pevy, Paxton Stewart, Abraham Saffuri and Hudson Harley. Paxton and Henry took out the match and narrowly lost in the quarterfinals, which saw them place fifth on a game count back. This was our best result in this division of the event.
The Middle Year’s division saw the remaining 14 of our students compete across seven different pools. Across 36 teams, four out of our seven teams made it through their respective groups, with students in the girl’s division Ruhara Mapabandara and Ling Rostas placing third overall after narrowly losing the semi-final. An amazing effort by them both and they should be very proud. Following the girl’s success, Orion Burdett and Huw Hoffman didn’t drop a single game before making it to the semi-finals, winning that one convincingly and narrowly losing in the final, placing second. Another great achievement for our Spartans.
Overall, it was a successful event, which had some great and our students handled themselves and the school extremely proudly. Well done again to our Spartans. The Somerset Coaching Team would like to thank Tennis Gold Coast for hosting the event and to the parents for providing their ongoing support.
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