Congratulations, exams are over and we are nearing our well-deserved summer holidays. We are delighted to see so many students across all years achieve their academic goals this year.
For those who did not quite manage to suffice to all their goals, don’t worry. This is a learning experience, and by strategising for improvement, you can all achieve high success. We highly encourage everyone to take the time to reflect on how you have applied yourself this year, and what changes you could implement to improve your studies in years to come. What did you do well? What went wrong? What did you enjoy about your learning? What steps can you make to create a more productive learning environment?
Holidays are only a couple weeks away! Make sure you take time to relax and rejuvenate after a long year of hard work. Spend time with your friends and family. Christmas is right around the corner! Make sure to buy your loved ones well thought out and heartfelt presents. This is a time to enjoy yourself and make long lasting memories.
Although you should focus on revitalising during this two-month break, you should also use your time to get a head-start on next year’s subject matter. Don’t leave any homework to the last minute! This will cause unnecessary stress, which is never an enjoyable way to end your break.
For Years 7 to 10: Make sure to check Schoolbox for any assigned work or holiday reading.
For students entering Year 10: Start working on your Personal Project now! This will alleviate so much stress from the busy year that lies ahead.
For students entering Year 12: You are about to begin your final year of high school! It is important that you complete all of your assigned holiday work and study for the assessments approaching fast in Term One. Let’s start our final year on a high note!
To the graduating Class of 2021, congratulations! You have just finished your final external assessments, marking the end of your schooling journey! Thank you all for being fantastic leaders and role-models for the entire school. Make sure to take a well-deserved break before embarking on your next adventure. Good luck!
Finally, a huge thank you to Roy and Momoe. We are honoured to take on this role. Your diligence will be so difficult to match. We cannot wait to see all the places you will go.
Throughout 2021, Year 11 students again participated in the Mudgee Kids Programme, where groups of about 20 students visited Mudgeeraba Special School each week. The connection between our two schools has been ongoing now, for over 12 years.
Thankfully, the ongoing pandemic did not interfere with our attendance in 2021. We shared ourselves between both junior and senior classes, assisting the classroom teacher by working alongside the students in their classroom activities. The initial visit was confronting but by our second visit we were much more ‘at home’ having learned a bit about the Mudgeeraba students.
Recently, we received letters from the Mudgee Kids talking about what they would like for Christmas. We all responded to one letter each by creating Christmas cards to send to the students we connected with and help spread the joy of Christmas.
Last Wednesday morning, Mudgeeraba Special School hosted a community partnership breakfast that both Darcy and I were fortunate to attend. We were served a delicious breakfast by the students and listened to guest speaker, Inspector Dan Bragg from the Queensland Police Service. Principal Colleen shared the wonderful work her students are doing in the community, while Inspector Bragg inspired us on leadership lessons through his experience with QPS.
Working with the students from Mudgeeraba Special School has truly been an honour and we’ll miss this opportunity next year. We know the students in Year 11 will relish the opportunity next year, as much as we have!
Somerset Debating has seen yet another vastly successful year. We entered the most teams of any school in the competition (17), and 10 of those teams progressed to Round 16; also more than any other school! Four teams made it to the quarter finals, a great feat given the highly competitive nature of the Gold Coast Debating competition.
Our most successful team, however, was our Year 8 Junior A Team 3, who finished Runners-up in their Grand Final at Bond University. Consisting of Emily Nickels, Noa Chester-Haviv, Ayla Chirathivat-Geralds, Mia Richards and speaker of the night Abigail Brinkworth, the team faced off against King's Christian College Pimpama as the affirmative in a gruelling debate over the topic: Children need more protection from the media. This is particularly outstanding given four out of the five team members had never done debating before this year! Well done, girls.
The future is bright for Somerset Debating, with a particularly strong presence in our Year 7 and Year 8 cohorts (with five and six teams respectively!) We cannot wait to see what they have in store.
Throughout their time with Somerset Debating, the debaters learn teamwork, communication, confidence, and many more real-life skills, all whilst having fun and smashing the competition! We have also had a very strong leadership cohort this year. For the first time ever, we appointed three Debating Captains: Nada Wilson, Antonio Lin, and Ella Kirk. It has been a pleasure being this year’s Debating Captain, and I, along with my fellow captains, could not have asked for a more eager, engaging, and talented group of young debaters to mentor.
After an incredibly successful 2021 season, Somerset Debating is only getting bigger and better! We cannot wait to see where the future takes us.
Tennis Queensland hosted its annual Primary Schools Cup, 29 October. The Cup is a modified event which attracts schools from all over the hinterland, all with the hopes of succeeding to the prestigious state finals later in the year. Somerset College showed up in force, with 34 students, four coaches and six teams competing across three divisions!
Players started competing at 9.00am and the event was scheduled to finish at 3.00pm, so despite the shortened format of tennis, it was going to be an endurance event. Our Spartans fought hard throughout the day in the ‘Fast 4’ formatted matches for the Green and Orange Ball teams, whereas the Red Ball team competed in a slightly different format.
The Red Ball team fought off all the other schools in both boys and girls divisions, taking out the whole event! Of the 240 ‘mini matches’ the boys team played; they won an amazing 184 of them! The girl’s team pipped St Vincent’s in the finals by a mere two points, great to see our students could handle the pressure! Winning the event is a great achievement for our young Spartans and they now get a chance to compete in the state finals later this year. The Orange Ball boys’ team had some tough competition and unfortunately came short in the play-offs but finished up with a respectful third place. The Orange Ball girls team competed hard through the day and nearly caused a few upsets of more experienced teams, however also narrowly missed out of the play-offs, and ended up fifth. The Green Ball teams faced some formidable opponents and unfortunately missed out on the play-offs, having two of the teams’ best players suffer injuries, mere hours before the event, did not help their chances. Our mixed Green Ball team 1 finished up sixth on the day and the Green Ball 2 team finished up eighth . This division was particularly competitive this year, so we’re proud of what our Spartans achieved.
Overall, it was a great team event for our students and coaches. We now look ahead to the state finals held later this year. We thank you to all the students for their best efforts and look forward to entering the event again next year.
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