A retrospective look at the National Student Leadership Summit.
Since our last entry for the ‘What’s Happening at Saints’ newsletter, we hosted around 120 Year 12 student leaders from across Australia for the 11th National Student Leadership Summit. This event is one of the major events that we organise throughout the year; it was a culmination of around five months of careful preparation and planning which saw our own abilities put to the test to organise an event of this calibre. We were fortunate to work with Louka Parry, Founder and CEO of The Learning Future, as well as Nicole Dyson, Founder and CEO of Future Anything who helped facilitate the day.
After the months of preparation within the comforts of our office, we saw ourselves, bright and early on Friday 11 March, starting to truly see the day take its shape. Even with minute-by-minute proceedings meticulously planned out, we didn’t expect to feel as nervous as we did. Fortunately, Nicole’s expertise and experience allowed us to remain composed as the students started to arrive at eight o’clock.
As soon as we began our welcome and introduced ourselves to the group as if by magic, the nerves dissipated. In Session 1: Connect, we led discussions around our values as young leaders and explored the personal journeys of our guests in small-group settings. We reflected on the years of unnoticed effort from our Australians of the Year, highlighting their individual strengths as well as understanding how their leadership occurred in the absence of recognition. In Session 2: Communicate, we explored the qualities of a good leader and intuitively linked these to the individual’s character strengths, through which we explored the power of language in leadership. Students engaged in a team-building paper plane competition, which displayed the value of effective collaboration. In Session 3: Create, we explored how to plan a community event or initiative for the students to take away with them.
At the end of Session 3, it was great to hear that so many of our guests reflected positively on the experience of the day and were inspired to create a similar event in their localities. We are so glad that this event has had such a strong ripple effect and we thank the contributions of all students who participated throughout the day. Thank you to those who also reached out via email letting us know how their projects are going and their reflections of the event; we were so pleased to see this!
Again, thank you to Nicole for her invaluable help throughout the day, we all learnt so much; it was truly an experience we shall not forget. Importantly, we must also thank Astrid Innes, our Publications and Events Officer at SPSC, for her guidance throughout our preparation and delivery. Her experience in organising this event and working with School Captains of the past helped us streamline our efforts and allow us to build confidence in our abilities and the process.
We are pleased to announce that we have partnered with Norwood Foodland to help run our Hot Cross Bun Fundraiser again this year! Click here to find out more and place your order.
Before we sign off, we would like to acknowledge the many members of our community who are currently isolating. We want to extend our support to these families and invite them to contact us if there is anything we can do to help in these times.
Chirath Lekamge
CLekamge@stpeters.sa.edu.au
Aidan Hughes
AHughes@stpeters.sa.edu.au
School Captains