No. 4, Term Two, 2020

Prep classrooms were once again buzzing with the sound of children happily chatting and playing when they returned Monday 11 May. Even though connection between students and teachers continued through the successful Prep@Home Online Learning Programme, Prep staff were just as excited to be interacting together once again with their students and back to a normal routine.

When asked what the students had missed whilst they were at home, it was lovely to hear, “I missed the puzzles”, “I missed my friends”, “I missed the playground”, “I missed P.E” and “I missed Discovery Time”. Much to our delight, students even admitted to missing their teachers (despite the fact we zoomed with them twice a day), and this brought a tear to our eye.

As a result of the current situation we find ourselves in, the children have had to cope with many changes both at home and school. During Prep@Home learning, students impressed us with a different version of communication skills, taking turns and being patient sharing their information and discoveries in a new virtual world during zoom sessions.

On return to the College campus this week, students faced a change on arrival… walking to the classrooms by themselves. They have certainly risen to the challenge and continue to make us proud with the resilience they are demonstrating. Students are being Oscar Organised, unpacking their own bags and arriving in a calm and cheery way ready to start their day. What an inspiration our Prep friends are for the rest of the college community in this ever-changing world. Go Prep!

Somerset has always been closely connected with Burleigh’s OzCare residents. Each week a group of Somerset students interact with the residents either through the programme ‘Seniors helping Seniors’ or when the Year 9 students visit the centre fortnightly.

Due to the pandemic the fortnightly visits had to be put on hold. Fortunately, we now live in an age of technology where we have been able to use the video conferencing programme Zoom to communicate with the elderly members of our community.

This modified service-learning opportunity has been a major success with students eager to participate in the session running on both Tuesday and Thursday lunch times. These Zoom calls allow us to effectively collaborate with the most vulnerable members of our community. Many of the age care members are unable to see their family, truly appreciate the time we spend with them.

Let the programme prosper in these difficult times until we can safely meet again as these short moments of joy will be invaluable.

Students should contact Mr Walker at bwalker@somerset.qld.edu.au for a Zoom appointment.

To our Year 7s to Year 12s, we hope everyone is safe and well during this time. Throughout these uncertain times, you might find yourselves caught up in the current situation, especially since everything is constantly changing.

I know working from home is a difficult and stressful change, and many of you might find staying engaged online is extra challenging because your bed across the room is just encouraging you to jump back in. However, we still want to see you succeed in your goals. So, don’t forget to stay motivated and on top of your workload.

We want to remind you to always believe in yourself. Whilst our long-term goals seem more distant now than ever, you can overcome these challenges and strive for success. However, success comes from hard work and a positive attitude. So, during these next couple of weeks at home, let’s continue to put our full effort into our work. We’ve gotten some great feedback about online classes and we can tell everyone’s doing great considering this change! But, if you’re still concerned or struggling with the adjustment, let us know so we can make sure you feel supported during this time.

Learning virtually at home may make it harder to learn content or to meet deadlines, however self-discipline is really important now when teachers aren’t monitoring your work constantly. We know from experience, the unexpected trips to the fridge make it tough to be disciplined, motivated and engaged. However, if you need any help, guidance or even just some advice, feel free to contact us. We’re just an email away! We are lucky to be able to connect with each other online, so let’s take advantage of this and stay engaged with our learning, so upon everyone’s return learning in class is that little bit sweeter.

We’re all lucky in that Somerset’s community has been extremely supportive during this time. Especially your teachers, who are working very hard to prepare your lessons.

Finally, remember to take care of yourselves and others. If you need any extra support or just want to chat, flick us an email.

We’re so excited to see everyone around the school soon!

Year 12 returned to the College and face-to-face lessons this week, taking advantage of the autumn sunshine at lunchtime, in the Towers Quad. It was all in the spirit of having good fun!

For My Personal Project, I am creating an original soundtrack (OST) of five songs that could be used for a modern 2D platformer video game. These songs are meant to be from varying parts of the game in order to use different music theory concepts to create different moods in the songs.

I have used the software Ableton Live 10 to create this music, using classical instruments and synth with sound engineering controls. So far, I have composed the five songs I planned to, however, creating these songs has made me want to fix up these songs and create more than I had originally planned, meaning that my final OST may have two to three additional songs.

Screenshot of Ableton Live 10

From creating these songs, I have learned a bit about the thought process of composers for video games. For the longest time, I have been fascinated with how people are able to cause the player of a game to feel different emotions at different times of a game even with limited animation and dialogue. Through this project, I have learned that you have to take into account what the player is likely to do in a situation and the pacing of a certain level in order to have the correct intensity at the right times. This most heavily affected songs such as, Duel atop a Mountain, which is music for a boss level, as I originally had a long build-up section which I removed as I wanted the song to go straight into the action.

Original Build-Up Opening

Final Version of Opening

I have also learned how to take inspiration from other pieces of music without plagiarising other people’s works. When I was creating the first level’s theme, I did not know what style I wanted and as such, I listened to first level themes in other 2D platformer games such as in the Super Mario Bros series. Because of this, when I made the theme for the first time, the music had pretty much the same tune as the music I was taking ‘inspiration’ from. I realised this and, after watching videos about people’s analysis of the music using music theory, I was able to create a new theme that was similar in mood but not in melody.

Original Theme with Same Tune as Super Mario Bros. Main Level 1-1 Theme

Final Theme with Original Tune

Overall, this Personal Project has been an amazing learning experience as I have been able to understand the number of innovations needed in the drafting process in order to create a piece of work that is the best it can for the context. Also, I have learned more about music theory through my research and now can create my own themes instead of copying others.

The goal of My Personal Project is to create a fitness programme that is effective and accessible to anyone. In the recent events of Covid-19 all gyms have been closed across Australia, leaving many people sitting at home without their equipment.

This has left many people to stop exercise all together and just wait until the gyms reopen. This is a very bad way to approach quarantine. People have so much time at their hands, but they waste it watching shows on Netflix, eating unhealthily and staying inside all day. This means people are not getting their 30 to 60 minutes of exercise a day.

My aim is to help these people with their exercise by creating an easily accessible fitness programme that can be easily used and will be very effective. This programme will be displayed on a website that will be free of charge. I will also add additional programmes for people who want different training methods or people who wish to only train certain parts of the body. I will also add a new training programme for when gyms reopen, this is for the people who want to start training again after quarantine which will specialise in burning body fat and building muscle.

So far, I have completed aspects of the training programme. I will definitely keep updating this programme throughout the whole project, if I feel it needs change or I come up with new ideas. The website is also under construction, but it still has a long way to go. During the Personal Project I am hoping to get a lot of help from experts in sport to increase the effectiveness of the programme and also get advice from website builders to help with website development.

I am hoping that I gain a lot of knowledge and experience from the is project that will help me in the future. I like this project very much and I can’t wait to see what I make for the final product.

Faith is scary, but sometimes it’s all we’ve got. A climber fell off a cliff, and as he tumbled down, he caught hold of a small branch, “Help! Is there anybody up there?” he shouted.

A majestic voice boomed through the gorge: “I will help you, my son, but first you must have faith in me.”

“Yes, yes, I trust you!” cried the man.

“Let go of the branch,” boomed the voice.

There was a long pause, and the man shouted up again, “Is there anybody ELSE up there?”

Perhaps the most unprecedented thing about the past six months (since the fires – remember them?) is the number of times the word “unprecedented” has been used. I am normally quite cynical about alarmism, but there is no doubt that the past three months in the world, and six months in Australia, has been the most destabilising and unsettling period in living memory for almost all of us.

We have fallen off the figurative cliff and are each clinging to whatever lifeline we can find. The actions of Governments and community, and especially those of our College leaders and teachers, have provided great lifelines, but we cannot cling to them forever.

We are now at a place where we need to find the “one who is out there” and then “let go of the branch” to take his or her hand. We need to have faith.

Faith is not blind, it is not living in a fantasy world, that is delusion. Faith is weighing up all that is known and then trusting this knowledge to give you the courage to launch into the unknown.

In religious terms this is about absorbing all that we know about the story of God, adding to it what we can’t prove but is consistent with what we can, and as a consequence trusting what the Scriptures teach about the way we should live our lives and the purpose we have been given. It is commonly expressed in the Christian aphorism “Let go and let God”.

But faith is not only a religious thing, it can be played out in our daily lives. For our Somerset students it is a matter of remembering how well their teachers taught them and prepared them, of how the College demonstrated its care for and commitment to them BD (before disruption) and using this memory to give them confidence and quell anxiety about this new era. As they move away from the lifeline of online learning they need to let go of that and grasp the new plan that is laid out to ensure their learning and success.

Similarly in family life and in business we must move to a new normal, a second set of drastic adjustments in just a few months. To do it successfully we must call out “Is anybody there?” and when we hear the voice that commands our trust – whether it be spiritual, psychological, social, entrepreneurial or emotional – we must let go of the branch we hold and reach out.

Yes, faith is scary, but it is far better than clinging to a branch that is almost certain to break.