The results from the APS 2019 Swimming Carnival are a great improvement from 2018 and I could not be more proud.
Congratulation to the following students for some amazing individual/ age group achievements:
Congratulation to all of the students who competed on the day.
Well done to all the Senior swimmers who also competed at the APS Swimming Carnival held earlier this week. Check here for Senior APS Swimming Carnival results.
Sohan suggested we could make all of our visitors a cup of tea but after discussion about hot drinks he thought maybe a glass of cold water would be better.
At 10.00am, residents from Ozcare arrived and settled before some introductions. The Pre-Preps had the opportunity to interact with our visitors and they were so caring and welcoming, explaining our routines and sharing some books and puzzles. We sang some songs together and before it was time to say goodbye our Pre-Preps organised themselves for morning tea. Our visitors were amazed at the beautiful lunchboxes and varied selections, recounting their experiences taking lunch to school in a brown paper bag with one or two items.
As our visitors left, they complimented the Pre-Preps on their wonderful manners and many commented on the joy the morning had brought them.
The connection between the generations was certainly a positive experience for all involved and we plan to continue these visits on a regular basis.
The room consists of a 10 metre green wall with curved ends for Chroma Key functionality in post-production and an 8 meter white photo wall with curved corner for filming. The paint used on these surfaces can also be used for photography. One of the key features of this room is an installed pantograph, an overhead suspended lighting system, with 12 White LED lights that can be adjusted from warm to cool white. This enhances the room’s diversity for filming and photography. An additional feature is the purchase of a RGB LED light that allows the students to add any colour across the spectrum into their shots to enhance the dramatic effect.
Coupled with this room is an industry spec dolly tripod and camera, an array of microphones, teleprompters and Digital SLRs. This facility, along with our commitment to using industry standard software for post-production, Adobe Premier Pro, will certainly enhance student outcomes for those that take Media Arts in Year 9 and 10 and Film Television and New Media in Year 11 and 12.
We are looking forward to seeing the use of this facility evolve over time, not only for the students taking media and film, but also for how the College community might use it as well. This has been an exciting collaborative project to be involved in bringing to life and the result is testament to the commitment by all involved in the project to make this a truly exceptional Somerset Experience.
Once we arrived, we were put straight to work and spent most of the day split into house groups where we attempted many fun activities whilst having a severe case of déjà vu – many of us remembered our own experience of Year 7 Camp! The activities included origami, orienteering, boxercise, Dr Brohier’s famous meditation and concert preparation. We all had such an amazing time getting to know the Year 7s in our respective houses and were extremely happy with the support we were able to provide in these activities.
As the final activity concluded and the Year 7s were ushered to have their showers and prepare for their concert performance, the leaders, co-ordinated by the House Captains, set up luxurious dinner tables to give the Year 7s a surprise. Dinner gave us another fun opportunity to communicate with the Somerset class of 2024. Though, soon after the initial seating, sign language became the first preference as our voices were quickly drowned out and were lost amongst the other 120+ voices.
Finally a testimony to the time we spent helping each house prepare for their act, we were all thrilled by the commitment and teamwork each house showed throughout their performance. All acts were spectacular and though the trophy could only go to one house, Laver. The happiness and joy from an amazing and successful night was experienced by all, including the leaders and staff. We were so grateful to spend even just the one day alongside the Class of 2024 and were sad to leave them so soon.
On our way home, we discussed the memories we made, hoping that our presence on their camp will be remembered. On behalf of the leaders who attended the camp, we are all looking forward to spending the rest of the year solidifying the relationships with the Year 7s.
We are looking forward to our first weekend rehearsal this Saturday, using the stage at Robina Community Centre. Students have been practising acting, dancing and singing to bring the story to life.
We are grateful to have the expertise of our teacher choreographers, acting coaches, singing coaches, costume makers and designers, makeup team and backstage assistance.
In 2018, as part of National Science Week, I attended the Robina Library Auditorium to listen to the 2018 Australian Local Hero Award recipient, Eddie Woo. Eddie Woo is an unlikely hero, who is known mostly for his online maths lessons on his Youtube channel, wootube. His presentation entitled Reimagining Mathematics was based around the question, ‘what is mathematics?’ Eddie posited three answers:
Mathematics teaching continues to evolve and last year when I wrote about academic excellence in Mathematics, I commented on some of the ways Somerset was actively seeking to create personal connections between students and the subject matter. I referenced the fact that we strive to teach genuine understanding of mathematical concepts and procedures, and we look at the "why" something works, and not only the "how”.
Over the past three years, in Year 7 Numeracy, we are implementing tasks that are fun, provide opportunities for students to explore, and that make connections to real-life situations. One such task requires students to work in architectural teams that are challenged to design as many houses as possible using 4-cubic modules. The resulting designs are drafted, costed and justified as part of a housing development. Embedded in the task is a story about urban developers working within council regulations. For instance, the regulations state that the modules all touch face to face and cantilevered structures are not allowed. As Eddie Woo, suggests, this task incorporates an element of fun working in teams, however, finding the complete set of unique house designs, requires in-depth exploration.
In Year 7 Numeracy, we are balancing the teaching of separate isolated facts and concepts with in-depth inquiries that make connections with the world and with other subject areas. As part of the MYP, (criterion D: applying mathematics in real-life contexts), we ask students to identify how mathematics is applied to an authentic real-life situation and we encourage them to develop appropriate strategies to solve real-life problems. We are continually seeking ways to enrich our maths curriculum and to encourage students to have fun, work in teams and explore.
The Flipside showed how quickly things posted online can spread to unintended audiences and for all our students reminded them to think before they post and to never post anything without permission or that has the intention to humiliate others.
While social media and technology can be wonderful ways to keep in touch with people, the interconnected nature of technology can just amplify issues when we make bad choices. The performance showed just how quickly things can spiral out of control and the importance of living our lives with our values, both online and offline.
The presentation highlighted that real people have real feelings. It is our responsibility to ensure that we are using the Internet safely and that makes it a positive experience for all.
Some key reminders for all students included:
For myself as the coach, it has been a challenging opportunity to share experience and knowledge in developing young athletes in the, 'land of Triathlon'. For the youth athletes, heaps of smiles hidden under the, 'I’m struggling here!' faces during the hard sessions… a mixed feeling of accomplishment and pleasure that only sport can provide.
Our initial weeks are meant to introduce participants to the sport itself, change the mindset from independent sports (swim, bike and run) to thinking Triathlon as a whole, where each effort needs to be well distributed for full race performance.
We’ve been doing a lot of bike/run transitions: initially hard ride vs easy runs to understand the importance of pacing the efforts and will gradually build into race pace ride vs hard but smart paced running (for those who’d like to further read into it, Google: Meur et al. 2011. Relationships between triathlon performance and pacing strategy during the run in an international competition).
Thank you to Anu and Jeff Samra at Pac Ave Markets Miami for donating succulent fruit for our students.
Thank you to Katarina Just from Cataccinella for the wonderful cake art pizzas, to Simone Fraser for the cookies and Victoria Lakis for the cupcakes!
Thank you to our volunteers Paul Filmer, Eric and Peng, Angie, Simone Fraser, Justine Cirocco, Victoria Lakis, Daniela and Vivian.
With their bright yellow theming and their already strong relationship with Somerset College, the Andrews House Leadership Team thought OzHarvest would be a perfect fit for our House.
Accompanied by our Head of House, Ms Lee, we were fortunate to attend a breakfast at Oz Harvest’s new premises in Surfers Paradise and meet the founder of the organisation, Ronni Kahn, the morning of Friday 15 February. It was a perfect opportunity for us as the Andrews House Captains to learn a little bit more about this wonderful organisation and the fantastic work they do in the community.
At this breakfast we heard from founder Ronni Kahn about how far OzHarvest has come since she founded it 15 years ago. Ronni Kahn founded OzHarvest in 2004 after noticing the huge volume of good food from the hospitality industry going to waste. She decided there had to be a better way and starting her mission in Sydney with one van she delivered 4,000 meals in the first month. Since its humble beginnings, OzHarvest has seen extensive growth and is now Australia’s leading food rescue organisation, collecting quality excess food from commercial outlets and delivering it directly to more than 1300 charities supporting people in need across the country. OzHarvest now operates nationally, rescuing over 180 tonnes of food each week from over 3,500 food donors including supermarkets, hotels, airports, wholesalers, farmers, corporate events, catering companies, shopping centres, delis, cafes, restaurants, film and TV shoots and boardrooms.
Hearing Ronni speak about some of the goals OzHarvest has for the future and not only reducing food waste in our country, but globally, as well as increasing education and awareness was a truly enlightening experience for us. We, as Andrews House, are extremely excited to commence our relationship with OzHarvest for the coming years as we believe we can make a great difference. OzHarvest is a great fit for our House and not just because of its signature colour, yellow!
Parents should have already received an email from admin.immunisegc@health.qld.gov.au with immunisation information and a link to the online consent form.
If you haven’t received this email you can contact Gold Coast Public Health’s immunisation team on 1800 940 750 or drop into the Health Centre in the Arnison building to complete a hard copy consent form.
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