Orbit, Granny Get Your Gun, The Oracle, Orpheus and Eurydice and the PA Poltergeist. The 2018 House Plays Festival saw Andrews House reign on stage. But, which of the Houses would it be in 2019?
Adjudicated by writer, producer, actor and director, Sam Foster, student directors and their casts didn’t disappoint, creating performances that made the audience laugh, reflect and embrace the world of creative arts and performance. Each of the student directors prepared for their role throughout Term Four of 2018 and the audience certainly appreciated their directorial vision coming to life on stage. The audience was not disappointed. The audience erupted with laughter and sat in awe of the amazing work of our students. Mrs D’Arcy noted she wasn’t envious of Sam’s position and I think the audience agreed! After much deliberation, Starkey House won the Best Overall Play and Laver House took out the Adjudicator’s Award. Congratulations to both Starkey and Laver House for their recognition. Actors awards were awarded to students for their exceptional character work; Amy Jackson, Ella Hammond, Lilly McCoomb and Georgina Powell. Well done to all!
One of the wonderful things that involvement in the House Plays Festival affords our students is the opportunity, in a creative space, to cultivate friendships and strengthen bonds with peers in their House. The House spirit and collective purpose is something our College community values and appreciates in the production of this Festival.
With the renovations of the Performing Arts Theatre in full swing, producing a Festival of this calibre is not for the faint hearted! Our appreciation to Mrs Anna D’Arcy, Assistant Head of Performing Arts for co-ordinating, overseeing and mentoring our student directors and providing the opportunity for our students to showcase their passion for the arts. Mrs Sue Roberts, Head of Department – Performing Arts for her dedication and support of the Festival, Mrs Josephine Flynn for her technical expertise, Mr Lawson Schafer for his backstage efforts and to Mr Roberts for logistically managing students and equipment throughout the process.
Congratulations to all of the House casts!
A programme first organised by the Committeein 2018, Young Scientists is a great opportunity for students from Year 7 to 12 to volunteer their time to get to know the budding geniuses in the Junior School, help to generate an interest in the sciences, while having some fun ourselves.
On Wednesday lunchtime, we began this year with an investigation into Chemical Reactions. Committee captains Chad Brodbeck and Luisa Ardill-Walker led the group with a demonstration of the much-beloved ‘Elephant Toothpaste’ experiment. Ensuring that our Year 3 friends were fully kitted in their safety gear, we made the poor choice of starting a battle between Starkey and Veivers with the all-important decision as to what food colouring should be added to the foamy bubbles. As per the current trend, Starkey came out on top (to Chad’s disappointment) and we enjoyed an eruption of pink foam that flowed, to the delight of the students, voluminously over the desk.
This was followed by an attempt by Year 10 Science Ambassadors Leigh Amores and Maito Yamaguchi at the Hydrogen Rocket. Though it took a couple of shots at the usually crowd-pleasing experiment, eventually they were able to blow the kids away with an awe-inducing launch of our “rocket” using simply some hydrogen gas and a match.
Following the demonstrations, the Year 3s – with the aid of our committee volunteers – got to have a go at making their own Elephant’s Toothpaste. All around Smith 2.1 we observed tiny rainbow volcanoes erupting atop the benches and the delighted squeals of both junior schoolers and their overjoyed mentors. It truly reminded us of the wonder and magic that is science.
Young Scientists is a great opportunity for both the Senior and Junior students to perform some colourful experiments and learn (or revise) some scientific concepts. We’re excited to kick the next session off in Week 10 and continue throughout the year.
Both venues explained the points of view of their beliefs and answered the children’s wonderings about the belief systems. It was an opportunity to also be guided with mindfulness, meditation and well-being as we continue our journey in this, 'who we are' inquiry.
Latai Taumoepeau. Naiza Khan. Soe Yu Nwe. What do these all have in common?
For the Year 12s, the concepts of colonisation, industrialisation and westernisation expressed by many of the artists were pertinent to our theme of Tradition and Change. The artists we saw were incredibly authentic and personal in their works, creating a seriously humbling and awe-inspiring quality to the time we spent walking the gallery floor.
As well as visiting the Asia Pacific Triennial at GOMA, we had the opportunity to view the works of a wonderful range of Australian artists at the Queensland Art Gallery. From the intriguing detail and colour of Michael Zavros’ Bad Dad to the massive range of pastel landscape paintings created throughout the last three centuries, there was something for everyone to enjoy and feel inspired by.
Although we cannot take the works home with us (as much as we adored them), we all took away a wider socio-cultural perspective on the world around us – something that is often lost in a fast-paced student life and new ways of reinventing our own artworks.
In addition to the younger students improving their reading, the benefits to our students are also obvious. I have been particularly impressed by the commitment, reliability and punctuality demonstrated by our Year 10s and I have also witnessed their confidence growing as they engage the students in conversations about their chosen books.
We have been fortunate to have some Year 11 and 12 students, who, because of attending in previous years, continue to participate in Clover Connect. They provide a wonderful example to the younger students and their involvement is very much appreciated.
The Year 10 students have embraced the opportunity to read with the students at Clover Hill State School and I feel so proud to accompany them each week. If there are other Year 10 students who wish to be involved next term, I encourage you to come and speak with me; it is a worthwhile Service Learning activity.
Year 3 students are using Bits Box text based coding to create their own App games.
“I like coding because I am using Java Script and it is really interesting.” - Melody 3G
“I like coding because it is something new that I am doing.” - Jacob 3G
“I don’t like coding, I love it….” - Amelia 3G
Year 4 students are inquiring into Belief Systems. Students are busy designing and creating a chosen place of worship using Minecraft Educational.
Moving through to Year 5 where students are enjoying collaborating with PE, Italian and Technology to create a wellbeing Stop Motion movie.
“I really like the fact with Stop Motion you can draw on a whiteboard and make the characters animate.” - Maddie 5N
“I like the fact we are practising the movements in PE, we are learning the vocab in Italian and we are creating a fun Stop Motion in Tech. So much fun!” - Savannah 5N
“I love the fact that you cannot get it wrong, it is such a creative project.” - Scarlett 5N
Students in Years 5 and 6 are reminded to come along and see me if they are interested in entering the QLD Premiers Coding Challenge competition for 2019.
Some of the sessions incorporated over the weekend taught us not only how to physically recover, but also how to mentally recover and maintain our stamina.
We arrived at Lake Ainsworth on Friday night prepared to train hard but also have a great weekend. Once assigned our cabins we enjoyed a delightful dinner kindly arranged by the Lake Ainsworth Staff. After dinner students and staff underwent a leisurely walk around the campsite, where many students were shocked to see a one-metre long snake right in the middle of the path. Carefully we manoeuvred around the snake and continued back to our lodges to have a well-deserved sleep.
We had set our alarms for 5.30am New South Wales time and were ready for a 6.00am run. We managed to run seven kilometres along the beach to the headland and back. Several students saw their first real sunrise, it was beautiful. Once returned, the students enjoyed a lovely breakfast. We had time to shower and change before experiencing a painful yet effective stretching session. Many students were then introduced to heart rate monitoring where we tracked our heart rate throughout a tough circuit training session.
After this, lunch was provided and students moved to the lovely Lake Ainsworth where many activities, such as stand-up paddle boarding took place. Mrs McKenna was pushed into the lake by Nick Tan causing everyone to have a good laugh. After this long morning and afternoon the students were glad to hear that they had free time to relax until a three-kilometre twilight run around the Lake. Finally, dinner was served and an effective goal setting session helped many student to brainstorm about their future and what they wanted to achieve. Students were very glad to hear that it was finally bedtime.
Waking up the next morning was hard for some being that students were extremely tired yet surprisingly still motivated to complete our last three-kilometre run. Receiving breakfast soon after we had a great feast which included bacon, hash browns, pastries, eggs and much more. It was funny when somebody put BBQ sauce on their ice-cream thinking it was chocolate topping! When we got back to the lodges we packed our backed and hit the road ready to go home. On the way back we got to stop at McDonalds and we all indulged. We were all very thankful and Cross Country Camp was a great experience.
We are looking forward to returning next year! Thanks to all the staff (especially Coach Glauber, Mr Halloran and Mrs Sturges) who made it enjoyable and a great weekend!
At the Queensland Youth State Surf Titles held at Burleigh Heads recently, two Year 6 Somerset College students, from two different surf clubs and one Year 8 have had great success.
Lily Hanson (Year 6) - with a Silver Medal in the U11 Cameron Relay
Ryan Hisco (Year 6) - with a Gold Medal in the U12 Sprint Relay
Britney Igner (Year 8) - Gold in Beach Sprints
Felix Jackson-King - Silver Triple Jump and Bronze Long Jump
Prosper Nwoko - Gold in 100m and 200m
Samuel Reeve - Silver 200m
Good luck to all teams in Week 4 of grading coming up, keep up the great work!
U11 Girls: Riko Tateno
Riko has been praised by Coach Vicki Franks for her excellent defence of late. She locates and marks up on her player with urgency, anticipates their movement well, and stays between them and the basket, stopping any easy points! Great defence like Riko's is a strong sign of effort and enthusiasm, well done!
U15 Boys: Jaye Samra
Jaye has been a force to be reckoned with rebounding for his team, securing possession on the defensive end, and cleaning up after any missed shots on the offensive end. He has been hailed the "putback king" for his efforts on the glass last week, being a huge influence his teams close victory over P.B.C.
Our Spartans of the week will be interviewed every week for SpartanTV, which will be posted on the Schoolbox "Basketball" Group. Stay tuned!
Any students interested in joining Somerset Spartans Basketball Club, please contact Mr Whish-Wilson (swwilson@somerset.qld.edu.au) or Coach Dean Marais (dmarais@somerset.qld.edu.au) for more info and details on how to sign up.
The Experience offers 10 players and two goalkeepers, each from four age groups, the unique opportunity to come together, train, compete and live like a professional Futsal player in Barcelona! Players are given the unique opportunity to put into practice the concepts learned each day during skills competitions and matches against competing teams from Spain, Brazil and the United States.
Lachlan completed over 15 hours of training over the week, including evening video analysis sessions and played games against each of these overseas teams in friendlies and a final tournament.
Lachlan was most excited dressing in his 'Aussie' team kit for the first time and in their first game, which was against Spain, he was the only player in the team to score a goal and received much attention. Over the course of the week we received fantastic feedback on him from the coaches and they are writing him a personal reference.
We were very proud at the final dinner awards night when Lachlan was selected for the Ambassador Award from his Australian team. The Award was presented to the player who Pro Futsal felt would best represent the sport to others, and show the high level skills and attitude that makes a great player.
Over the week Lachlan was exposed to many sport leaders such as Xavi and Sergio, but he also met Leo Santana of Barcelona Futsal and also Ricardinho of Movistar, (the number one Futsal player in the world). As part of the trip Lachlan was also taken on interesting tours of Barcelona. He also saw Barcelona play live and Inter Movistar, one of the top Futsal teams in the world.
A short movie here as the Australian team walks out to play against Brasil.
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