It feels great to get an opportunity to participate in a student leadership in schools program. A lot of schools throughout the world are starting to reconsider the manner in which they educate their student leaders and how they harness the great leadership potential of their students. A few weeks ago, I took part in two mind-engaging training programs which are worthless.
First, in December 2019, five schools came together and organized a three-day training program for a few of their students in various leadership positions. The theme of the program was student leadership in schools and focused on enhancing important matters such as teamwork skills, presentation skills, and helping students play their roles even better.
Classroom teachers did the sessions and the local high school was used as a base. One more training day happened at the beginning of the year to provide the students with a chance to take their roles a step further. This mode of training is very beneficial as it offers amazing opportunities for teachers to develop professionally and also helps in the transition easier for high-school for a lot of students.
Another wonderful training program on student leadership in schools was organized and over a hundred students were chosen to attend one leadership workshop day organized by the teachers. By participating in groups, the students got the chance to enhance their ideas when they mingled with student leaders from several different schools. Sharpening their skills required for their unique roles the group to start looking at ways of talking leadership a notch higher through organizing self-initiated projects.
Using self-sponsored projects has proven to be a nice way of developing the potentially-active, community-minded, motivated students, which fits most student leaders’ profile.
Some primary schools are boasting of some self-initiated projects that they have developed over the course of the time. Here are examples:
- A debate on the pine tree effects on the environment after storms that lead to a lot of houses destroyed by falling pin trees to raise awareness.
- A student-driven fund-raising project for the Tsunami or any other disaster
- An established High-Fly Club where students organize a wide selection of speakers to visit the school and speak to the students during the break.
- Tots and Talk or Tea session to allow parents to come together and talk about parenting issues organized every month. Child-minding and refreshments are organized by the leadership team.
Such projects need supervision and some help from teachers if they are to be done well. However, when student leadership in schools is well cultivated, students can prove themselves to be very capable people and project managers when provided with the opportunity.
For schools looking to extend their student leaders’ activities beyond just fulfilling their roles, by getting involved in extra projects, the below tips can prove helpful:
- Create a leadership team. Student leaders need to see themselves as part of a team instead of just house captains or SRC representatives.
- Challenge the student leaders to come up with a project with a predetermined time frame. The most effective projects are created by the students themselves. However, they may require some ideas
- Alternatively, have them conduct a series of simple projects in small teams. Some schools prefer to break the leadership group into smaller teams much more manageable.
- Suggest activities then create an action plan and let the students follow. A well-sequenced action plan is important in helping them to carry out the activities needed in getting their projects completed.
- Evaluate how effective they are during and after the project. Let the students ask “What’s working?” and “What’s not working and what do we require doing?” are essential questions that any project manager should mind about
Conclusion
Schools are looking for new ways of harnessing and developing the potential of student leadership in schools. In that way, the use of self-initiated projects can make learning more efficient for students.
