RizeUp furnishes homes, free of charge, for women and families leaving domestic violence refuges across Australia and turn an empty shell of a house into a genuine home.
Thank you to our generous Somerset community for the wonderful donations, not only were we were able to fill our list easily, we were able to give our excess eggs to other 'Bunnies' on the Gold Coast to help them fill theirs.
With over 300 children residing in local refuges, it has been a heartwarming experience to witness, in a small way, the collective spirit of our community and the power of coming together in support.
Together we will bring many smiles to the little people in refuge this Easter.
Unfortunately, we were very disappointed with the amount of rubbish and scraps in the gardens and pathways around the College.
The group filled almost six bags of rubbish in only a brief 45 minutes of searching.
We hope more people will consistently put their rubbish in the bins and an even bigger group joins in next year.
We have all enjoyed our parent visitors (those who celebrate Lunar New Year in their culture) coming into our Mandarin lessons and joined in the celebration.
They have been introduced to the Australian Bureau of statistics to create a population profile of Zillmere, a suburb in Brisbane where they looked at analysing the graph to summarise the demographics of that area.
As this is the CENSUS year, it will be even more meaningful to them. I encourage families to involve their children in discussions and conversations surrounding this survey on August 10.
They have brainstormed factors that influence people’s decision to live in a certain area and conducted surveys, observations and interviews to determine and substantiate their findings for the Investigation Inquiry question: ‘How liveable is your suburb?’
This week the students are now applying their new found knowledge and data to formally answer their inquiry question. After evaluating the liveability of their own place they will be noting an area that would benefit an improvement and see how they can take action in their community to make a difference.
They now have a better understanding that places provide us with the services and facilities needed to support and enhance our lives, and that spaces are planned and managed by people for a variety of reasons and needs.
The webinar began with a PowerPoint presentation presented by Christina You. We learnt about what economics means, how our economic system works, inflation/deflation and the role of the Reserve Bank of Australia in relation to our economy. At the end of the presentation, we had a Q and A session where many questions were raised.
Financial literacy is incredibly important and because of this opportunity we extend a special thank you to the Reserve Bank of Australia for hosting the event. Importantly, we were able to utilise what we learnt into our current unit: ‘Rent vs Buy’, whilst broadening our understanding of our current economy and the impact it has on our society.
Legacy is a non-profit organisation, that relies totally on volunteers to assist war widows in cleaning up their backyard, in order to make their home more user friendly.
Upon arrival, the boys met Joy a 98-year-old women who lost her husband post World War II. After a quick safety briefing, which was definitely necessary, the boys split up and got to work. After a solid couple of hours at work, and some very well received homemade biscuits, Joy’s backyard and front garden looked amazing.
The community service initiative was a great team-building opportunity, and an excellent way for the Rugby programme to build positive community relations and give back to the local community. We truly hope that the Rugby programme continues to partner with Legacy in the coming years.
As featured in Episode 2 of Spartan Stream.
In the A division, Somerset Team 1, featured Calen Tang (5.5/7), Alessandro Martinese (5/7), Oscar Credland-Ballantyne (5/7) and Harrison Qu (4/7) finished in second position on the day, with Calen Tang taking home the third place individual medal as well. Three other students who performed very well on the day were Tamar Chester-Haviv, Kitty Pallister and Shih-Yang Lin who all scored over 50 per cent in a very tough competition. Somerset Team 2 finished in fifth place with a team of Tamar Chester-Haviv, Dylan Hu, Shih-Yang Lin, and Aden Webber.
In the B Division, Somerset teams performed well, but were outgunned (and outrated substantially!) by King's Christian College. Our top performer in this division was Arthur Chou who scored 5/7 to finish in fourth place.
In the C Division, Somerset did very well, with Franklin Yang scoring a perfect 7/7 to claim first place! Joshua Thompson scored 5.5/7 to finish fourth (=third), with William Zhao and Angela Yuan scoring 5/7 and Jakub Pitura scoring 4.5/7 as all four players received ribbons of merit. On the teams' front, Somerset Team 8 (Franklin Yang, Benjamin Blashki, Levi Wilson, Gary Fei) finished in second and Somerset Team 9 (Joshua Thompson, Alexandra Smith, Aaron Wang, Paxton Stewart) finished = third.
On the recent Queensland Junior Rating list, Somerset students had some impressive increases with Eason Wang +67, Calen Tang +63, Harrison Qu +36, Dylan Hu +24, Byron Morris +20, Alessandro Martinese +20, Zhander Griffiths +20. New students to gain ratings were Jared Consiglio-Cockle (930), Zayya George (577) and Ishaan Baswal (553).
The best way for students to improve, or get a Queensland Junior Rating is to play regularly at the lunch clubs or the Friday afternoon tournament each week, as well as external events such as the following upcoming events:
Cookies QLD Rapids: Kings CC on Saturday March 13. Open to all adults and juniors.
Gardiner Chess Junior Masters: William Duncan SS on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st March. This event is designed for players over QJ800.
Gardiner Chess One Day Challenge: William Duncan SS on Sunday 21st March. Event designed players rated under QJ800 and unrated players.
For any questions about chess opportunities please do not hesitate to get in contact, Andrew FitzPatrick.
For many of us the first time we had played volleyball on the beach. The games were played as a time limit, 3 x 8-minute sets with teams assigned to pool play before progressing to the playoff rounds.
The Intermediate and Senior Teams started on Sunday and found the early games tough as they adjusted to differences between the indoor and beach version of the game. However, as the day progressed our teams started to find their ‘beach legs’ and recorded wins against solid opposition. The intermediate team showed great improvement over the course of the two days and started to record consistent performances towards the end of the tournament. Both Senior Girls and Boys teams were also able to show great improvement and showed winning form even in the tough windy conditions.
The Junior team started their campaign on Monday and convincingly won every game in their pool play to advance to the semi final match against the top team from Craigslea Volleyball Academy. In a hard-fought match, the boys came through to advance to the final against The Gap. In the final, Somerset came back after their opposition started strongly and sent the match into a deciding third set. In the final set the scores were even until the very end when some strong serving decided the final score with Somerset coming away with the silver medal, an outstanding performance.
Well done to all of the students involved, the experience will help to develop your skills in volleyball over the coming years. Also, a big thank you to the parents who came and supported over the two days, your efforts were greatly appreciated.
See player Raiden Kyaw's recap in this week's Spartan Stream.
This is an outstanding achievement at this level and testament to the hard work our Spartans put in after a very difficult and interrupted past 12 months.
Felix Jackson-King and Stephanie Sprague were both outstanding once again, and as our Athletics Captains lead the way winning Gold medals in their respective events of Triple Jump and Pole Vault. Congratulations to you both. Two newcomers to Somerset College this year were Lucy Twigg and Cru Scott, both winning Silver and Bronze medals. Lucy had never competed at the State Championship level before and after working in our Spartan Athletics programme for the past few months achieved fantastic results with two big Personal Bests, two medals and two National Qualifying times – finishing second in the 100-metre to the Australian Champion! Well done Lucy! Cru was also outstanding with three medals at States (with a Gold medal in the recent 3km State Championships in February) running some great races and two National Qualifying times. Well done Cru!
Starr Scott won Bronze in the 800-metre in a tough race that had some difficult circumstances with the electronic timing not working initially with a call back, after only a couple of minutes they all set off again making it pretty tough to clock a fast time, Starr handled it very well and was rewarded accordingly. Starr also finished with a fourth place in the 1500-metre (also fourth at the 3-kilometre State Champs in February). Kade Reynoldson who is also the recent State Multi Event Champion, competed in four events with heats, finals, and a hectic schedule over the weekend with early mornings and late evenings. He won Bronze in the 400-metre in a big PB, Bronze in the Javelin with another PB, placed fifth in the Long Jump in another PB and finished sixth in the 200-metre, his final event of the Championship with another PB. A big future in Decathlon awaits Kade and we have a fantastic group of support coaches in our Spartan programme with me, Phil Newton, Jess Hughes and Howard Arbuthnot who are all working together with some lofty long-term goals ahead for Kade.
Indie Seccombe bounced back from long term injury to claim a Bronze in the 1500-metre running a strong race and we look forward to seeing her continual improvement over the coming year as we head towards APS Cross Country and the School Track and Field Season in Term Three and Four. Miku Adachi was a standout for me with her fifth place in the Under 20 800-metre. having never competed at the State Championships before and with a PB of 2.21 going into the final, Miku shaved off two seconds and ran an outstanding 2.19-minute. Miku is one of our hardest working and most disciplined athletes and juggling her Year 12 studies has her sights on the school track season and running even more PB’s this year. Terrific result, well done!
Sophie Clements was very happy with her new PB in the Long Jump, jumping a very good 5.40-metre in the Open Age competition and finishing in seventh place. Sophie was unable to compete in her age group of Under 17 earlier in the weekend, so jumped in the Open Age. Her 5.40-metre would have placed her third in the Under 17 age group. Great jumping Sophie, who is also one of leading Hurdlers and Sprinters. Kenny Ming had a couple of solid hit outs in the 800-metre and 1500-metre running an 800-metre PB and very close to his PB in his 1500-metre.
Seven of these athletes have qualified for the Australian Championships which doubles as this year’s Olympic Trials and will be heading to Sydney in April to compete. We wish them all the best at this event and are looking forward to seeing how they perform. Our resident Somerset Physiotherapist and Senior athlete, Alex Beck has been undefeated over 400-metre this season and has been running personal bests over both 200-metre and 400-metre and will also be competing for a place at the Tokyo Olympics this year at the Australian Championships, he has been a fantastic mentor to our Spartans and we wish him all the best for his selection.
Congratulations to all our athletes for such a great weekend of competition. I will be travelling to Sydney to support our athletes and will report back with results and experiences after Australian Championships.
The level of this year’s Futsal titles was very high. All teams were very experienced. The Under 10 and Under 11 Boys had a hard time and unfortunately did not qualify for the next round.
In the Under 8 competition, only two teams were registered. These two teams played practise games in the Under 9 group and played their final at the end of the day. The Boys started great, taking the lead but Calvary College was too strong and defeated us with 4 to 2. This made us Runners-up in the Under 8 competition.
Well done to Phoenix, Jesse, Abhiveer, Hamish and Liam.
Congratulations to the Under 9 Boys, Under 10 Girls and Under 12 Girls. They have qualified for Finals day. We wish luck to all players competing on 22 March.
The Winners from the Metro Titles will play in Term Three, the Champion of Champions to decide who is the best School Futsal team in Queensland.
In Term Two our Senior Students will play their Futsal Titles.
Keep checking our Schoolbox Futsal page for the latest updates.
If any questions about Futsal at Somerset College. Please contact our Head of Football and Futsal mdekruijf@somerset.qld.edu.au
The event is not only available to Somerset students, rather the entirety of the Gold Coast. There are three different divisions, Red ball, Orange ball and Green ball. Each division of the tournament is team based to encourage players to work together and enjoy competing with others.
Our Future Stars event had around 50 players participating and an additional 50 parents watching and giving support from the sidelines. It was a pretty awesome environment and we will definitely be a highlight of the kids calendar year of tennis.
Somerset ended up coming fourth on the day, which was a solid achievement as we had a lot of players attending for the first time.
Two Somerset students recently competed at the Interschool Queensland event held by Springfield Anglican College and Emmaus College at the Park Ridge Pony Club.
Competitors, Jayde McKinnon, Sophie Krueger, Grace Frawley, Mia and Ava Reeves all performed brilliantly on an incredibly hot day.
Sophie took out overall first place for her age group and jump height, while Jayde achieved second place.
Congratulations Sophie and Jayde!
Grace Frawley and Jayde McKinnon also competed at the Glennie School Dressage and Show jumping competition in Toowoomba.
Catch more on this story in this week's episode of Spartan Stream.
Christian Pai recently competed in the Sodi World Series championship.
He joined the competition at the start of the year and is currently ranked 30th nationally out of around 2000 other drivers.
Compared to the rest of the deserted school, one place seems like a huge party- the Tennis Courts! After training, everyone agrees that we are all exhausted from waking up early but faces red and hands sweaty, when the bell rings for class we all wish training could continue.
Every Monday the training consists of intense competitions, up-skilling, striving to beat anyone in our path but most importantly, Somerset Spartans Sportsmanship. Coach Lachie and Mrs Rowe have taught us not only to win our matches but to win them fairly and to shake hands after a match. They have taught us about sportsmanship as an ethical value.
The training every week is phenomenal. The creativity in each activity is well thought out and at the same time is a lot of fun. For example, we had an extremely close and intense game of, 'throw and catch the ball' to test our co-ordination in tennis. If you don’t throw and catch the ball 60 times in the time of one minute and 30 seconds, you get a punishment so lethal, so petrifying that it will be in every one of your nightmares… SHAME! (Scary, I know!)
With the term flying away from us, the Junior Boys Tennis team has already had two matches and the qualities we have all been improving could be clearly seen. Our Tennis team has united as one and surely, we have many more matches to win in the forthcoming competition.
GO JUNIOR BOYS TENNIS TEAM!
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