2020 Student Leadership Structure

Why Student Leadership?

Whilst the roles may vary, the purpose of having student leadership in a school strongly
supports everything we aim to accomplish as teachers.
It promotes life skills such as communication. Nominated students must go beyond the
ability to communicate ideas with friends, but also with other year levels, other classroom
teachers, and other community representatives. This may be making phone calls to
companies seeking financial quotes.
Having nominated students in leadership roles also promotes student agency and voice.
Those students who do not have the confidence to share their ideas on a large scale, can
still have a voice and present their ideas to their peers. This is especially evident in the
Junior School Council representatives who voice the thoughts of individual classes.
With there being leadership roles present throughout the school, it is hoped that the
overall attitude towards school would raise for all. Having student leaders modelling school
values will shift the focus from those doing the wrong thing, to something more
constructive. A Year 2 student seeing their House Captain pick up rubbish, is more likely to
do so (if we want to see it, teach it).
These are just some of the ways student leadership can promote positive engagement.
These roles support the school values, which coincide with Annual Implementation Plans
and more largely; the Department values consistent across all Victorian schools.

Where have we been?

There is a limit to how much an organisation can support at any given time. As a result,
projects are either neglected or dropped all together. Schools can be especially challenging
in this area as staff juggle day-to-day teaching with countless other responsibilities:
professional learnings, class admin, school admin, excursions, incursions, reprimanding
students, rewarding students, classroom management, planning, assessment, data analysis
...
Student leadership is one such area that has been neglected. For how long this has been
neglected is hard to say (due to staff turnovers), but the evidence is in the current roles of
student leadership.
Where are we now?
As the school celebrates the embedding practices of the teaching and learning of individual
classrooms, it begins to shift focus to emerging areas of student agency. We are beginning
to scrape together the crumbs of previously established leadership roles and adapt them to
our present-day expectations.
This “scraping” and “adaptation” is evident in this year’s Peer Mediation program. The
original program, established a number of years ago, was adapted into the GANAG lesson
structure; a school-wide expectation. We have always maintained the roles such as School
Captains and promoted these as best we can. Speaking at school assemblies and being
recognised at whole school events has recently been their main role. Students are allocated
Houses upon enrolment. This is another crumb of the past whose skeleton is found in the
school’s trophy cabinet.
Staff involvement has been one of passion, as opposed to expectation and commitment.
Any organisation of leadership has been taken-on as an additional responsibility. The
results have varied as staff juggle and drop these additions in their already overwhelming
performances.
Individuals and committees have been segregated; focusing on only small areas of student
engagement. The Whole School Events committee have met separately to that of student
leadership. This is inefficient as then the committee have to repeat information several
times over as they address the TICs, the students, and then the whole school. This is just
one of the areas that we can improve on.
When we reflect on past school leaders, we can identify flaws in the selection process
which has resulted in inattentive leaders. The role of Sports Captains were GIVEN to
students who MIGHT make good leaders. This was hoped to improve the engagement of
those individual students, at the cost of the majority who went lacking of good leaders who
upheld the school values. This was also evident in other areas of student leadership such as
Peer Mediation. After collecting data on the number of students actively participating in
their assigned responsibility, it was found a large number of Year 6 students failing to do so.
Where CAN we go?
First and foremost, there needs to be whole school commitment to actively supporting
student leadership. Staff incentives in the form of pay, time release, or resources, with the
addition of clear constructive roles and responsibilities (for both students and staff), must
be implemented in order to effectively develop our leaders of the future.
 -Make suggestions towards ideas, programs, or
projects Principal +
-Constructivly support the below tier Assistant
-Have final approval towards ideas, programs, or Principals
projects

-Appove student ideas, programs, or projects for

further development. Student-
Teacher/s In
-Activly encourage student ideas orientated
Charge (TIC)
-Activly monitor and supervise student-lead comittee/s
meetings

-Formally collate ideas into a presentable format

-Activly modelling school values throughout all areas Peer Mediator
of schooling School Captains House Captains
-Be the voice and represent for student groups Captains
-Lead student meetings with the support of TICs

-Activly modelling school values throughout all areas

of schooling Junior School
-Support the needs of higher tiers School Vice-
-Activly involved in student organisations Council student Peer Mediators
captains
-Confidently and constructivly share and discuss representatives
ideas

-Activly modelling school values throughout all areas Student Relevant Foundation -
of schooling
-Support the needs of higher tiers population classrooms Year 4 students

An example of a Whole School Student Leadership Structure

The students’ perspective of what a student leader does, must be reset. At the current
moment, the school captains are no more than faces who speak at assembly who are in
Year 6. There are Year 5 students who are seen to be the leaders of the school more so
than the Year 6 School Captains. This can be accomplished by a whole school selection
process. Having students run campaigns at recess and lunch times will get their younger
peers engaged. They could do classroom visits to share their ideas, or even present
speeches at assembly. This will also begin the selection process as those students who are
genuine about the role, will put more effort in.
The responsibilities of each student role needs to be more explicit. Below is an example:
Role Responsibilities
School Captains -Dedicating one lunchtime a week to organise responsibilities
-Supporting TICs during and after meetings; especially with Junior
School Council
-Actively modelling school values on a consistent basis. This might
be encouraging a group of friends or younger students to pick up
rubbish or play a friendly game
-Supporting TICs in the organising and running of assemblies
Junior School -Dedicating one lunchtime a fortnight to organise responsibilities
Council Classroom -Support the School Captains. This might be collecting information
Representative from individual classes and helping collate it in a meeting
-Consistently modelling school values. This might be doing the
right thing when others are not
-As a committee, organise 1 out of uniform day each Term
-As a committee, organise 1 charity fundraiser each Term (gold
coin donation day)
House Captains -Support TICs during sporting events. For example, marshalling
houses on athletics day
-Organise at least 1 House competition for each Term
In addition to responsibilities, consistent recognition of efforts will support student leaders:
Role Perks
School Captains -A student admin login for computer use
-A print budget
-Independent organisation time out of class
-Supported organisation time out of class
-Access to Library computers during recess and lunch times
-Access to privileged information
Junior School -Supported organisation time out of class
Council Classroom -Limited access to privileged information
Representative -Contributing to whole school events
-Opportunity for promotion to future leadership roles
-Provided snacks for some meetings
House Captains -Out of class school values modelling (assisting younger year levels
in PE)
-Open boundaries on days of organisation
-Supported organisation in class

How will we get there?

Approximate Timing Actions

Fridays Session 1 Year 5 students will be explicitly taught the roles,

responsibilities, and perks of leadership roles. They will
then engage in tasks to nominate and promote themselves
to the school community: campaigning at recess and lunch
times, preparing and presenting persuasive speeches,
formal applications addressing a criteria, and meeting with
school leadership.
10th December With the majority of 2019 Year 6 students being involved
Term 4 2019

(transition day for with Secondary transition, the Year 4 and 5 students will
MOST year 6s) participate in the Peer Mediation Training Day. This will
prepare them for 2020. Year 4, 5 and 6 teachers will have
an opportunity to lead pre-organised activities as planned
by the TIC.
Towards the end of 2020 Student Leadership Structure is formally
Term 4 acknowledged at an assembly (including TICs). Certificates
will be presented and students will present a thank you
speech. This will be followed by a meeting and the signing
of a contract acknowledging they understand their roles,
responsibilities, and consequences for not upholding
these.
One session a Sports Captains: a whole session or spread across in
fortnight smaller amounts to fulfil their commitments. Tasks to be
provided by TIC (organising a lunchtime sports
competition)
Term 1 2019

One session a week School Captains: a whole session or spread across in

smaller amounts to fulfil their commitments. Tasks to be
provided by TIC (promoting school values with younger
year levels, or organising an out of uniform day)
Recess and Peer Mediators: actively engaging with Foundation-Year 4
lunchtimes students with the aim to mediate conflicts.