Over the past four years the festival has grown rapidly, showing us that it was the right decision to embrace entrepreneurship as a key pillar of a Somerset education. Teaching entrepreneurship does not override the option to study traditional subjects like Mathematics, Science, English and Humanities but rather seeks to highlight that even doctors, lawyers and other professionals now have greater scope to be entrepreneurial.. Entrepreneurship is about new ways of thinking, and embracing innovation, creativity, collaboration and communication as the pillars of successful and fulfilling career in the future. Ultimately it is about best preparing our students to achieve their personal best in a global world.
Highlights of the 2020 Somerset Celebration of Entrepreneurship Festival include:
Thank you to our College staff for their hard work in bringing the Festival together. A special thank you must go to the Celebration of Entrepreneurship Strategy Committee for their guidance, support and hard work in setting the direction of the Festival both now and into the future. This team includes Headmaster Mr Craig Bassingthwaighte, Miss Lisa Thomson, Mr Mark Sowerby, Mrs Amanda Appel, Mrs Jolie Clifford, Miss Megan Ziems, Mrs Sarah Kirby and Mrs Andrea Lewis.
In summary, the benefits of the Somerset Celebration of Entrepreneurship for our students are best described by one of our wonderful Pre-Prep teachers in an email they sent me during the Festival.
The Pre-Preps loved all they saw and made wonderful connections with the Senior School!
It was lovely to see the little people engage with older students. The Senior School students who engaged with the Pre-Prep’s were so patient, polite and friendly; it was an absolute pleasure as I remember many of these Senior School students from Prep! One of the highlights was the rooftop popcorn treat at the Synergies Creative Minds Exhibition. The event was a total and delightful surprise manned by two gentlemen with impeccable manners who ensured everyone was happy and comfortable.
Earlier in the day the Pre-Preps also enjoyed a visit to the Castle Cubby Precinct and took turns at being shopkeepers and customers. We identified numbers and letters, made decisions, practised good manners, patience and some friends even had a picnic with their shopping. The children were engaged and excited to explore a new-hands on learning opportunity and made concrete connections between money and shopping.
Thank you to the Somerset community for embracing the Celebration of Entrepreneurship and the wonderful opportunities it provides for our students.
As you all know, the most exciting time of the year is approaching.
We all have experienced the stress of exam blocks so here are a couple of studying tips to hopefully help you cruise through this otherwise stressful time.
Develop a timetable. Spend the appropriate amount of time on each subject. Utilise the method of ACTIVE RECALL when studying. Active recall is scientifically proven to be significantly more efficient than passively re-reading or re-copying your notes. “Students who used active recall [are] able to remember about 80% of the new terms compared to 34% for the control group who only use passive recall.” (Karpicke, 2008)
After the Exam
Treat yourself! You’ve been studying hard and you deserve it.
Best of luck on your exams! Remember, effort is proportional to success. But also, make sure you don’t forget to take care of yourself too. And If you ever need any help or just want to have a chat, feel free to flick us an email or talk to us at school.
Year 7 students were involved in fun and energetic activities that encouraged them to make a positive contribution and to be an active leader.
yLead provided many activities to help us: Learn from our mistakes, Empower others, Acknowledge our strengths and Develop connections.
This programme gave a meaningful and effective growth experience for all of us.
Wishing you and your family a spook-tacular Halloween from all our Hub Staff and students!
To compliment it, the sky was cloudless and crisp Gold Coast blue, the water warm, the air warmer and with not a hint of wind to trouble the glassy ocean. Set after set of three to five foot swells rose to capture the bobbing surfers and shoot them along on exhilarating rides. I even heard a few “yahoos”.
Now I am not a surfer, I’ve never surfed (I say it is because I don’t like the sport, my mother, because she is brutally honest, says it is because I am too lazy) but as I watched I envied the surfers for the simplicity of their efforts that brought such joy.
I have come to learn that it is the way with surfers. No matter what trials, disappointments, and fears trouble them on land, being amongst the waves puts their minds at rest. It is not just the distraction of the play, it is a deep flushing of the pent-up anxiety. In the worst of times this may last no longer than the session itself, but the fact that it occurs at all is often enough to kick start the surfer into hope.
On Sunday, same place, same time, the temperature had dropped and the wind had risen and was busily chopping the surface to make surfing more like rolling down a corrugated road. Only the intrepid and desperate were seeking waves but the lookout deck at Nineteenth Ave was crowded with those who’d come in hope and decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
I eaves-dropped their conversations (for what else do you do when surrounded by strangers?) They shared stories of how great it was yesterday, and how it was like that time back in …., and how great it will be when the swell is big enough to get the artificial reef doing its thing, and how great Burleigh and Kirra and The Alley were last month. No one was moaning about the current conditions, or how they’d missed out on yesterday. Their focus was on the good that had been, and the good they were sure would come.
What a life lesson! Surfing is about enjoying the moment as it is, when it is. And when it is not, it is remembering how good it once was and looking forward to when it will be again. This approach is too simplistic for some of what life brings, but not for all of it. Too easily we are flipped by the weight of disappointment, failure, or trials and they suffocate our joyous experiences and drain our memories and hopes.
Let’s live like surfers by starting each day checking where the good spots are likely to be, making every effort to get to them, enjoying every moment of them when we find them, and then letting the memory and highlights carry us through the dark when it arrives.
The Under 8 Pink, all girls Futsal team played their first match versus the Dolphins. The opposition had some good players and better opportunities during the game but the Spartan girls had a great experience, lots of fun.
Thank you to all parents for the support and cheering the girls up during the game.
The Under 8 Blue played their first match this season versus Under 8 Orange. Both teams are made up of Year 2 students.
Well done to both teams, good luck for the rest of the season.
It was a very promising start to the Futsal season for the boys who clearly picked up right where they left the football season. It was an intense game with the opposition putting the boys under pressure. Despite this they managed to work some nice passes and score some great goals. A special mention to Ethan’s chip over the keeper. The goalkeeping efforts were also very commendable with a special shoutout to Franklin for pulling off a series of very impressive saves during his stint in goal.
Overall, it was a very even and enjoyable 5 to 4 defeat.
The Under 8 Green team kicked off their 2020 Futsal campaign against a well-rehearsed and evidently experienced Magic line-up. Ambitions and hopes were high, as for many it was their first official game of Futsal. Magic started with purpose, quickly putting Somerset on the defensive. Despite some brave goal line defence from Knox and Dylan, Magic converted their first goal.
The boy’s tried relentlessly to keep the opposition at bay but Magic kept the goals rolling following some impressive counterattack and pinpoint passing. The game saw Sam, Hunter, Levi and Jakub all try their hand in goals, an exciting new addition to our formation. Despite going down to a classy opponent, 19 nil, the boys showed great character playing to the very last minute.
We were immensely proud of all the Spartans who played and we look forward to next week's game.
What a great start to the season for the Under 8 Black Team. For their first game, the boys were very impressive and their defence was outstanding. Right from the start it was evident it was all about teamwork and this created some solid pressure on their opposition. In the end, Lachlan scored two fantastic goals and Alex shot one past the goalkeeper.
Well done to Joshua, Will and Max for your efforts as well. The final score was 4 to 3 to the Sharks, however it was a very well-matched game and could have gone either way.
The Under 10 Somerset had a very strong and competitive first match, narrowly defeated to Somerset's Under 9 team. For many of our players it was their first game of Futsal ever! As such was very impressive how they all performed and came together as a team. There were some amazing saves in goal by Dash, great passing and dribbling from Miranda, Farri and Eli as well as some beautiful goals from Zac. In summary the game was one all players can be proud of.
The first Under 9 Futsal game for the season saw two Somerset teams go head to head. It looked as though it took a while for both the Under 9s and the Under 10s to warm up and get into the swing of the game. Maybe it was the transition from having just completed a season playing on grass and now having to play on a hard surface. Or maybe it was because the U10s started the game with only three players but were able to borrow Harper Loon from the U9s while they waited for their missing players to arrive.
The U10 team were only short players for approximately five minutes, but within that five minutes Harper scored a goal against his own team, and accidently kicked the ball into the face of his own teammate, Danny Wang. Danny went down rather theatrically, and we thought that he may need to go off injured. But with a bit of encouragement from his dad (Coach Sean) he continued. Once the Under 10 missing players arrived, Harper swiftly returned to his Under 9 team. Just to put things into reality for Harper. One of the dads yelled out "you're now on the losing side”. Harper quickly realised why and evened out the score. The Under 9 team won 8 to 4.
The Under 11 play in the Carrara Super League, with their first game against Robina. The Spartans led for almost the whole game but in the last minutes of the game Robina showed their strengths and took a few late goals. The side had no subs and this led to players getting tired towards the end of the match. The final score was 5 to 6 to Robina.
First game will be played on Saturday October 24.
On Friday, the Girls State Finals was held at MacGregor State School with 20 Somerset girls representing the school.
In the Primary division, Somerset 1 finished fourth in the Open Division, just half a point outside of third. Somerset 2 finished = sixth, Somerset 3 finished =13th, and Somerset 4 finished 19th. Individually Nicole Yuan and Annika Lim both scored Merit ribbons (5/7 and 4.5/7 respectively), whilst Illia Dunworth, Kitty Pallister, Kseniia Igumenova, Adriana Smith and Paris Liu all scored 50 per cent or better. It was also highly encouraging to see half the team made up of Year 1 and 2 girls, which is exciting for the future!
In the Secondary division, Somerset 1 proved far too strong for the opposition to clinch the title of Queensland Secondary Girls State Champions! The girls have all been putting plenty of practice in with their coaches for the last few months and it’s certainly paid off. Melody Yang went undefeated with 6.5/7 for first place overall, whilst Lyanna Chan scored 6/7 to get 2nd place. Jennifer Yeung scored 5/7 whilst Nina Varcoe and Debby Kuo (team 2) scored 3/7.
This now means that team 1 (Lyanna, Jennifer, Melody and Nina) will now represent Queensland at the Australian Schools Teams Online Championship (online due to travel restrictions) on December 5 and 6.
Somerset sent three teams to the Queensland Inter-School State Finals on the weekend with two teams competing in the secondary division and one in the primary division.
The Primary team (Calen Tang, Alessandro Martinese, Elijah Hadikusumo, Oscar Credland-Ballantyne and Harrison Qu) performed above expectations throughout the weekend with a series of hard-fought games. The team finished in 12th position, but this doesn’t reflect the performance as they took points off the teams finishing first, second, third, seventh and 10th, including a 2.5-1.5 victory against MacGregor SS! For this team, gaining experience was most important, with Oscar being the oldest in year 5, 3 year 3 students, and Harrison only being in year 1! We are super proud of all five students and their achievements on the weekend.
In the Secondary division, the students performed very well with the first team (Byron Morris, Kenny Ming, Oliver Yang, Eason Wang) coming in second place behind Churchie and ahead of TSS on count-back. Again, there were many hard-fought battles with each student playing some great chess at times through the event.
The second team (Jason Li, Charlie Liu, Lyanna Chan, Kona Baldock) finished = seventh over the six rounds with all players performing strongly across the tournament.
Junior Schools Cup is an annual volleyball festival targeted at Year 7 and 8 high school students and caters to approximately 2,000 athletes of all skill levels who competed over three days. Playing in the Year 7 Boys Division 2 competition the boys started training for the competition in early August and with limited prior volleyball experience. As the tournament grew near the boys started to gel together and develop their individual volleyball skills as well as their team strategy.
On the first day of the tournament the boys played Redlands College and Kelvin Grove and with some great serving from Carlito Lamont and Mason Richards they were able to come away with two victories.
On day two the boys needed to secure a win against Toowoomba Grammar to ensure that they finished on top of their pool and a birth straight into the semi-finals. With some great setting from Lachie Mathieson and Jed Collofello they boys pulled out the victory and finished on top of Pool B.
On the final day the boys needed to beat Canterbury College to advance to the gold medal match. With outstanding attacking at the net by Raiden Kyaw and Ethan Grocott and inspiring defence from Mandi Barrios and Luke Oishi the boys managed to convincingly book a spot in the final.
In the final against Villanova the boys put in a gallant effort but fell just short securing the silver medal.
All of the boys showed fantastic Spartan spirit with coaches from opposition teams commenting on how well the boys supported each other on court with their encouragement and positive attitude. I am super proud of you all.
A massive thank you for the support from all of the families involved over the course of the journey. A special thank you to Eli Mathieson who went above and beyond to support the team at trainings and over the tournament weekend. And last but not least to Mrs Grocott for her work as assistant coach, team manager and support crew, we couldn’t do it without you.
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