Terms 1 & 2 School Sports Outreach Activities

Our Young Sports Leaders have been involved in several sporting events with our partner primary schools.   First, last year’s Junior Sports Leader Award pupils ran an Infant Festival that was postponed in July because of the terrible weather and was almost scuppered again, but thank goodness for indoor facilities! Scores of Year 1 and 2 children enjoyed all kinds of races, games and obstacle courses.

Our new Junior Sports Leader Award and Community Sports Leader Award groups have been helping with two other big projects: a Year 6 Talent Identification Programme, (190 students present) and a Year 2 Infant Festival.  Both days were fantastic events where teachers and parents alike were really thrilled with the interaction of our young pupils with the primary students and the level of fun that was had by all!  It has been consistently impressive how well the pupils from Somervale have risen to the challenges encountered when working with younger pupils. They have been a credit to themselves and the school. 

New Football Kit for Key Stage 3

 The picture shows the new Key Stage 3 boys football kit. The money was raised during a PE fundraising day in July, which was organised by the sports captains and £500 was raised. Well done!  

Students Get Jumping for Somervale

On Sunday 2^nd December 7 students competed in the South West School Trampolining Competition at the Bristol City Academy. This was the first time that many of them had competed and they were a credit to the school. Jamie Fricker (Year11) took part in the U19 Boys Elite, Steph Cox (Year11) U19 Girls Novice, Alice Buller Young (Year10) U15 Girls Elite, Lucia Parsons (Year9) U15 Girls Novice and Meg Powell, Karis Parfitt and Aimee Seymour (Year7) competed in the U13 Girls Novice. They had a fantastic day and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  We would also like to thank Simon the coach for working with them every week in order for them to experience this. 

Sports Report

Girls’ sports report 

It has been an extremely busy term in girls’ PE this term. For the first time the netball has been organised into a league structure. This has meant that we have played Ralph Allen, Writhlington, Norton Hill and Oldfield. The Year 7 team have shown phenomenal commitment and we have had 14 girls regular play for the team. They have unfortunately not won their games, but narrowly lost by one goal against Ralph Allen and Oldfield.

The Year 8 team has also played really well as a team and narrowly lost a good game against Norton Hill. The Year 9 team continue to be a strong team and have won several of their games and have been fantastic towards their commitment.The Year 11 girls have been playing in the Hockey league and have lost against Norton Hill and drew against Chew Valley. Four girls played in a recent Badminton District Tournament and were runner ups, so well done there.

Girls’ Football

 Y11 Lost 1-0 vs. Oldfield 1-0 (County Cup)Y10 Won 5-2  vs. Prospects College Reading (National Cup)Particular credit must go to the Year 10 girls’ who triumphed over a very strong side from Reading in the National Cup to take themselves through to the next round. 

Badminton

The Y11 Girls’ Badminton Team (Jess Withers, Rachel Nuth, Sarah Britton and Christina Clift) performed fantastically to win every match until being beaten in a very close final in the BANES tournament.

Golf

Michaela Chivers has been selected in the England Development Squad after some excellent performances

Boys’ sports report

This season’s rugby got off to a shaky start, with some difficult matches against the best of our opponents, including some strong teams from Ralph Allen.  However, the teams made good progress and soon started to improve the quality of their rugby.  The Year 9 team were our most consistent side, winning half of their matches, including an excellent victory over Ralph Allen.  Other highlights came at Broadlands, where the Year 8s recorded their first ever win, and in the home match where the Year 10’s totally dismantled a good team from Culverhay.

Boys’ FootballY8 – Lost 6-1 vs. Clevedon (County Cup)Y9 – Won 5-1 vs. Frome College  (County Cup)Y10 – Lost 4-3 vs. Gordano  (County Cup)Y11 Lost 2-1 vs. Frome  (County Cup)

Every side has started the season with good attitudes and commitment to representing the school.  Having only played cup matches thus far, the highlight so far has been the Year 9 victory over Frome College without any of their four BANES players.  Well done boys!

Diamond Laps.

The Diamond Lap Challenge was a great success in October, with virtually every pupil from Years 7-10 completing laps in a variety of methods, from doing thousands of forward rolls, to completing the laps tied together by the hair!   

Travel & Tourism Explore Egypt

The Year 13 Travel and Tourism group had an amazing time in Sharm El Shiek, Egypt over the October half term.  Miss Cox and Mr Dent took 13 students to an eco resort on the Red Sea.  The trip involved looking at the positive and negative impacts of Tourism on the area in terms of social, economic and environmental impacts.

 The resort was very beautiful and the hospitality of the owner, Sherrif, was second to none.  The accommodation was built in authentic Egyptian style with all aspects of energy saving in mind.  The group enjoyed excellent snorkelling off of the beaches reef, which is teeming with marine life from huge Parrot fish to Blue Spotted Rays.  All of the students had a go at the snorkelling and most took to it very well. 

The groups also went on a trek into the Sinai desert.  This was great fun as they had a camel trek to a local Bedouin camp located at a desert oasis.  This totally awesome experience was topped off by another camel trek which culminated in leading the camel train up the side of a mountain.

A totally high octane experience!  All of the students gained a great deal from the experience and fell in love with Egypt and the Egyptian culture  Awesome all round… 

Somervale Students Support Charitable Trust

  GCSE Art students from Somervale are proud to announce that their artwork has been chosen by the Downs Syndrome Education Trust to front their new selection of greetings cards.

 The students are delighted that the cards, which are sold in aid of the charity, have already raised over £100

 The Downs Syndrome Education Trust, based in Southsea, Hampshire, helps thousands of people every week in over 130 countries around the world. It is the Trust’s mission, through research and education, to discover how people with Downs Syndrome best learn to help them to achieve more. The education services the charity provides also support families and professionals to help people achieve sustained gains in all areas of their development. Headteacher, Mr Michael Gorman commented, ‘I am thrilled for the students that their imaginative artwork has been recognised in this way and that by donating their work they are helping this amazing educational trust. We are all very proud of these students and their achievements.’ 

Bristol Student Business and Enterprise Conference

Year 10 and Year12 Business Studies students accompanied joined 400 other school students at the Colston Hall in Bristol last month to hear from leading entrepreneurs.

During a lively conference top tips for success were shared and the students had to think competitively for the “Dragons Den” team activity. 

Michelle Mone of Ultimo gave a fascinating insight into building a successful global business.  She had valuable advice about how to achieve maximum publicity on a very small budget.

Willard Emmanuel Jones, “The Black Farmer”, rendered an amusing and very realistic account of the factors motivating his success in brand marketing.  He showed how making the most of your opportunities can lead you to the top in your chosen business.

Ruth Badger, runner up on The Apprentice, delivered a powerful message and gave insights into customer satisfaction with her mantra “aim to under promise and over deliver”.

 This was an experience recommended to other young entrepreneurs.  The Sixth Form Enterprise Group is considering using some of the clever marketing ideas seen on the day in their own business.  Everybody came away with some new understanding and different viewpoints about how to run a successful enterprise

Learning to Lead Projects Put Students in the Driving Seat

 Somervale is now under way with its Learning to Lead project.  All students have completed an on-line survey about all aspects of school life to highlight the things that they would most like to improve.  The money raised from the Walk to School week and the Diamond Lap Challenge organised by Miss Evans and the PE team are all going towards funding this really exciting project.

Miss Cox and Miss Fielding have visited The Blue School in Wells to see the project in practice and have been amazed at it’s success in getting the students involved with improving the school community and environment and taking ownership of their school. Somervale has seven project teams with students self electing into the ones that interest them.  These range from the Internationl Links, Fundraising Team to the Energy Watch Team. 

All of the teams are in the process of having a three hour training sessions to enable them to run their own teams and meetings.  The training has a big focus on learning through play and consensus decision making.  So far four teams are fully trained and they loved it!!  Half of a classroom has also been converted into an office for the teams to use with three PCs, printer, message board and telephone. 

This is an extremely exciting project that has the potential to really empower students to take a lead in the school and to learn vital people skills and teamwork in the process. 

Duke of Edinburgh Award Success

During October, eight sixth formers (Martha Green, Amy Horler, Sophie Bansal, Karli Sawyer, Rhainne Muspratt, Claire Brimble, Anthony Andrews and Liam Barson) completed their Silver Expedition for the Duke of Edinburgh Award on Exmoor. They all thoroughly enjoyed themselves and are keen to continue their passion for outdoor pursuits.

 We have also had several Year11 students complete their Bronze Award: Dan Cox, Matt Mears, Kirsty Alexander, Lauren Collard, Reece Hughes, Sarah Britton and Christina Travetti. Huge congratulations to them for their success and commitment to the Award. Best of luck for the Silver!

 Finally on the 23^rd November four Year11 students; Matt Mears, Alex Jefferis, Rachel Nuth and Christina Clift took part in the annual Night Navigation Competition on the Mendip Hills. They completed 8k in 2hrs 18mins.

Year 7 Musicians Go Caribbean

Year 7 musicians from Somervale and other local schools have been learning how to play steel band music from a team of experts who came to the school last month. 

 The steel band workshop followed a trip which all Year 7 students made to a concert held at the Frome Memorial Theatre on Monday 19th November. 

 Seven of our talented musicians in year 7 were then selected to participate in the workshop at Somervale along with other year 6 and 7 pupils from local schools in the area .   They to worked with the steel band called Culture Mix Arts from Reading.  The day was spent composing music for the steel pans and then performing it on camera.  The final concert was filmed by the Year 12 Media Arts students who will turn their recordings into a video as a record of the event. ‘This was a great opportunity for the pupils to work in a team on an instrument they had never played before’ said head of Music Mrs Sue Galton.  ‘It was a most creative and exciting day’