This year, Elsternwick’s Year 9 student leaders were empowered to plan and facilitate a series of ‘Student Leadership Workshops’ for their younger counterparts in Years 5 to 8.
Year 9 students worked together to prepare and deliver four workshops across Terms 2 and 3 on the topics of ‘Leadership Attributes’, ‘Presentation Skills’, ‘Managing One's Team and One's Time’ and ‘Teamwork and Teambuilding’, honing their own leadership skills along the way.
Planning these workshops with their target audience in mind, they made interactivity and engagement high priorities, including activities such as icebreakers, quizzes, role plays and demonstrations, small-group discussions and team games.
The benefits of this student-centred, student-led approach are two-fold. Our Year 5 to 8 leaders reported that they benefited greatly from the opportunity to learn from and alongside their Year 9 mentors. Our Year 9 leaders gained valuable feedback from workshop participants, meaning they could reflect on this feedback following each workshop to refine their approach from one session to the next.
Students learning from students along the leadership development journey – what could be a more powerful way of encouraging and empowering our young leaders?
