It is wonderful to see the numbers of students excelling on a day to day basis and being rewarded for their efforts.
2017 Semester Two, Year 7 Cum Laude Award recipients, Riley Davenport and Lauren Chan
The achievements of our students in their internal assessments have direct correlation to any external assessments, a validation of the professional capabilities of our teachers and curriculum leaders. It is no secret that our success year after year in QCE and NAPLAN is because of the culture of achievement and recognition we so cherish.
Our Academic Captains, Marc Eksteen and Grace Kennett, ran the Senior School Assembly in a timely fashion, negotiating the many names of the recipients superbly. It is a credit to all our students how quickly they settle to the New Year and its new tasks.
The Cum Laude Award recipients for Semester Two 2017 Years 6 to 11 are:
The Class of 2018 had their Investiture today after their Investiture Dinner last night. The evening was enjoyed by the Senior Class who were presented with their ties by me and their Senior Jerseys by the Acting Year 12 Co-ordinator, Ms Jacinta Hyman (Class of 1998). Of course, the greatest gift was the presentation of the Year 12 badges to the Class of 2018 by the Class of 2030, the Preppies. A precious moment for both classes.
The Sport Facilities Precinct is hosting an Open Day – Your Spartan Experience on Saturday 3 February from 9.00am to 12.00pm. I hope you can join us at the Sports Precinct and learn more about the engagement opportunities available to students including:
Fitness Centre Orientations at 9.00am, 10.00am, and 11.00am Activities will include a jumping castle, face painting, AFL speccy mat, BBQ, drink.
Bounce Back! is a Positive Education approach to well-being, resilience and social-emotional learning. It aims to provide practical strategies to help students cope with the complexity of their everyday lives and learn how to "bounce back" when they experience sadness, difficulties, frustrations and challenging times. While the language used in Bounce Back! is integrated into the students' everyday learning, each class will complete a 30 to 40 minute weekly lesson.
Bounce Back! is a Positive Education approach to well-being, resilience and social-emotional learning. It aims to provide practical strategies to help students cope with the complexity of their everyday lives and learn how to "bounce back" when they experience sadness, difficulties, frustrations and challenging times.
In Year 2, students are introduced to the B.O.U.N.C.E! acronym:Bad feelings always go away.Other people can make you feel better if you talk to them.Unhelpful thinking makes you more upset. Think again.Nobody’s perfect – not you and not others.Concentrate on the things that are still good when things go wrong.Everybody has unhappy times sometimes, not just you.
In Year 3 to 6, students are introduced to the B.O.U.N.C.E. B.A.C.K! acronym:Bad times don’t last. Things always get better. Stay optimistic.Other people can help if you talk to them. Get a reality check.Unhelpful thinking makes you feel more upset. Think again.Nobody is perfect – not you and not others.Concentrate on the positives (no matter how small) and use laughter.Everybody experiences sadness, hurt, failure, rejection and setbacks sometimes, not just you. They are a normal part of life. Try not to personalise them.Blame fairly. How much of what happened was due to you, to others and to bad luck or circumstances?Accept what can’t be changed (but try to change what can first).Catastrophising exaggerates your worries. Don’t believe the worst possible picture.Keep things in perspective. It’s only part of your life.
Our Unit of Inquiry, Living Things Grow and Change will also include how we grow and change and how having a growth mindset and being resilient helps us grow.
Stay tuned for classrooms full of butterflies.
The programme involves a Somerset student sitting with a child from Clover Hill State School to support them with their reading. Sometimes, they might also assist students with their homework.
In previous years, Somerset College students have had an enormous impact on the students at Clover Hill; many students have benefitted from this shared love of reading and it has motivated the more reluctant readers to pick up a book due to the relationships formed between our students. Reading is vital for developing literacy, a good vocabulary and a vivid imagination, and this helps to improve the school experience for the Clover Hill students. Year 10 students are encouraged to register for this opportunity, in particular, I would like to encourage male students to sign-up as this helps to increase the number of boys from Clover Hill who will engage with the programme.
Somerset students participating in the programme will be required to sign in at Clover Hill Reception before proceeding to the library at 8.00am. Time supervision by Somerset College staff will commence then. Students will be walked back to Somerset College by Mrs Sally Leslie at 8.30am.
All parents of Year 10 students have been emailed the permission form. Please have a talk with your Year 10 student about this opportunity and kindly respond via the link in the permission form. Once we have a list of participants, a roster will be created to share the responsibility for the programme and this roster will be distributed to parents and students as soon as possible.
Please email: soppermann@somerset.qld.edu.au immediately, if you would like to attend any of these trials and the relevant paperwork will be sent to you. Conveners must have five days’ notice of attendees.
All students nominate for all events they would like to swim at the South Coast Trials, to be held Monday, 26 February, 2018 at Miami Pool (one day only in 2018 due to Comm Games)
50m Free, Back, Fly, Breast and 100m Free
All other Strokes/Distances are paper nominated
All policies and procedures are outlined in the Senior School Sport page of Schoolbox, under “Sport Policy and Dates”. All students and parents are encouraged to familiarise themselves with these. Please note, practices are compulsory for both Winter and Summer Seasons.
Hinterland Trials are for strong performers to trial for representative selection in College Sport. These lead to Regional and State teams. Students wishing to trial for these teams must email or come to the Sports Department ASAP. All trials are listed on the Sports page of Schoolbox (“Representative Sport” tile and announced in Notices during the week.)
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 7.30am to 8.15am. Meet Mr Butcher on the pool deck - all welcome. This begins tomorrow. The House Swimming Carnival is in Week 4.
Every day at 7.00am to 8.15am. Meet Ms McKenna and Ms Oppermann at the Track - all welcome. This begins next Monday.
Student Injuries: If your son or daughter is injured at school sport, it must be recorded at the time by the school nurse/medical person present if parents wish to apply through the school insurance policy. If delayed signs or symptoms arise over the weekend, students must notify the school nurse on Monday morning.
Sports Information:
Sports Information:
Monday 12 February: Somerset House Swimming Carnival (8.40-3.20pm)
Wednesday 14 February: APS Swimming Carnival (9.30-2.30pm) at Somerset
Monday 26 February: South Coast Swimming Trials (all day) at Miami
All sporting details are posted on Schoolbox on the Sports page.
While PE classes have always conducted a battery of fitness tests throughout the year, we have now engaged the services of Dr Annette Eastwood (ex-South Australian Institute of Sport and AIS Olympic Triathlon) to conduct a series of tests and report on her findings. Each student will receive their own fitness profile and have the opportunity to either engage in an elite pathway sports programme or a core fitness skill catch up programme.
Research supports the link between fine and gross motor skill development and cognitive function. The self confidence gained from proficiency in a core of basic fitness tests is a safety net against the self doubt often present through adolescence.
While all of our Sports programmes are open to all students, some students are unaware of their base level of proficiency; if an above average competency is demonstrated, students may be invited to try one of elite Sports pathways.
The elite Sports programmes will see Dr Eastwood engaged in follow up physiological testing to help provide the academic background for our students along with the motivation that comes from evidence-based feedback.
With screen time being the recreational activity of choice for many people these days, we have seen some students with quite poor core fitness skills. These children may be totally unaware of their own fitness profile and once engaged, will hopefully take advantage of our magnificent gym and staff. Emma Sturges, our new Strength and Conditioning Coach, will be organising sessions to suit all age and ability levels for children who wish to engage in a fitness improvement programme.
We are very excited about the new opportunities for every child to achieve their own “personal success” through fitness.
In the Primary Open event, Somerset finished equal second (second on count-back) after a solid performance of 13/20. Somerset pushed the winners (Waverly Christian College, VIC) and indeed could have won that head-to-head match up, however it wasn't to be. The team played well, with Oliver Yang starring, scoring 4/5 to pick up the prize for best scoring player on board one. Eason Wang also scored 4/5 on board 2 which was 2nd on his board.
In the Secondary Girls event, Presbyterian Ladies’ College from VIC were the dominant team and ran away with the event. The Somerset girls battled hard, in what was a very hard-fought event. All the girls put in some excellent performances, despite results not quite going their way. Mayuri Yamaguchi starred on board 4 with 4/5. In the end the girls finished in fourth place (9.5/20), taking points of all the top teams. The trip was a fantastic learning opportunity for all the players involved, and for those who are continuing this year, it will make them stronger. Many thanks to all the players, parents and coaches for all their hard work.
The Australian Junior Championships were held in Melbourne during January and many Somerset players competed. In the under 18 Open, both Byron Morris (equal seventh) and Oliver Yang (equal 17th) played well above their age bracket and competed solidly throughout the event; Byron performing well above his rating. In the Under 14 Open, Ben Atia finished equal 24th and Jason Li equal 43rd. In the Under 12 Open, Raphael Atia finished equal 12th, well above his seeding, with Eason Wang equal 22nd and Kenny Ming – 41st. This was a huge event with 106 players taking part!
In the Under 14 Girls, Lyanna Chan performed very well to finish third, while Jennifer Yeung finish 11th. In the Under 12 Girls, Melody Yang finished equal second in an outstanding performance.
In the other events, Oliver Yang finished third in the Under 12 Open section of the Problem Solving competition.
In 2018, there have been some changes to the Chess Programme at Somerset College. The Co-Curricular programme will be continuing in the Junior School as it has in the past, however we are very excited to inform students interested in Lunch Club Chess can now come straight to the chess room! Year 1 and 2 students will be collected by our Chess coaches and walked across as per usual.
Lunch Club days are as follows:
Senior School – WednesdayYears 3 to 6 – every dayYears 1 and 2 – Tuesday and Thursday
The Senior School Chess programme has now been moved to Thursday mornings from 7.15 – 8.15. The top Junior School students will be invited to participate in this programme to further progress.
e is often referred to Euler’s number or Napier’s constant (he used it in his logarithms) but was, in fact, discovered by Swiss Mathematician Jacob Bernoulli in the 17th Century and is another example of Stigler’s law of eponymy, where a discovery is not named after its original discoverer. Speculation abounds around whether or not the letter e was used in honour of Euler but there is no evidence for this. The letter was probably chosen simply because a, b, c and d were already taken.
Bernoulli encountered the number e while studying compound interest. The expression for calculating compound interest, where the interest on a principal also gains interest is the principal multiplied by (1+ 1/n)n, with n representing the number of compounding periods. For example, if your money was compounded monthly (n=12), the expression would equal 2.61. As n gets very large, its value approaches e = 2.718…The nautilus shell takes the shape of a logarithmic spiral (which Bernoulli called spira mirabilis) whose growth is modelled by the function r = aebθ. This implies that as the size of the spiral increases, the shape of each successive curve is unaltered.
e crops up widely in mathematics and like its more famous cousin π, it is both irrational (cannot be expressed as a fraction) and transcendental (is not the solution to any equation).
Another interesting property of e is that it can also be expressed as a sum of an infinite series as follows; e = 1 + 1/1 + 1/1x2 + 1/1x2x3 + 1/1x2x3x4 ……
e is found in both pure and applied mathematics. Population growth, cooling objects and radioactive decay are all linked to this magical number which is also connected to the distribution of prime numbers. Even the normal distribution curve (bell curve) is a function involving e (and π). That seems so random!
Our students first meet e when studying the Calculus which involves both rates of change and accumulation. The function y = e^x has a unique property as shown in the following graph: When x = 1, the y value is 2.718 and the gradient (rate of change) of the line at that point is also 2.718. Furthermore the area under the curve to this point (accumulation) is also 2.718.
e also appears in Euler’s identity which is often called the most beautiful equation in mathematics as it links the five important constants, e, i, π, 1 and of course 0 as follows: e^iπ + 1 = 0
In 2004, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page paid e a major compliment in their IPO prospectus when they valued their stock, to the nearest dollar, at $e billion or $2,718,281,828 thus showing that any stock valuation is inherently irrational. Google later used e in a recruitment drive, inviting applicants to search for “{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com". This clue led to a website with further challenges to overcome for potential candidates. The first 10-digit prime in the digits of e is 7427466391, which starts at the 99th digit.
So please take it easy on 7 February as this date alignment will not occur for another 100 years, unless you prefer not to use the American notation – in which case it will occur all over again this year on 2 July.
And while I’m thinking irrationally…. we should not forget Phi day this year on 1/6/18 which happened in January in the US but will also surface again elsewhere in June. Make that a golden day.
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