Student Leadership

The opportunity for student voice has always been valued at Killester. Our Student Committee and House structure has been a vital avenue for student voice. Leaders at each year level represent their cohort in various aspects of school life. Each year level elects 16 representatives to membership of the following committees:

Student Council
Sport
Arts
Community Service
Celebrations
Environment and Sustainability
Music
VCAL
Brigid House
Romero House
McKillop House
Chisholm House

In total 110 students hold leadership roles – that is over 10% of the student community!

In February this year, all leaders met in teams to set goals for their Committees. A level of commitment, enthusiasm and promise of an exciting year filled the room. Unfortunately, our year of COVID19 stopped these plans. Killester students are champions of adapting. From a distance, working remotely, year level leaders supported their cohort making support videos, sending messages and making sure their year level connected with each other.

Elections for 2021 leaders will be held on Friday, November 6. Students have nominated for Committees and Houses, prepared and delivered speeches. Elections are modelled on the Australian Electoral Commission format with preferential voting ballots, voting booths and ballot boxes. The current Year 10 Leaders act as polling officials marking off student names on an electoral roll. This is a great learning tool in Democracy preparing students with an essential life skill.

Today in a live streamed assembly our school community farewelled our Year 12 students. Each Year 12 Leader gave a speech, reflecting on their 6 years of a Killester College education and the school theme of “Justice”.

Here are a few excerpts of their speeches:

Hang Thy Nguyen - Student Council Leader

As the Student Council Leader, I always encourage students to speak their mind. Especially during this pandemic, voicing your thoughts is always welcomed and appreciated, as it will further enhance your student life as well as others! So, my final message to you is to stay motivated and opinionated individuals.

Jiwanjot Dhillon – Community Service Leader

Killester is a place where every day is an opportunity for you to become a better version of yourself. It is a place of justice, where everyone has the right to voice their opinions. It is a place where social justice exists in every classroom. The teachers are always encouraging their students to question the world around them, giving students opportunities to critique and construct their own opinions and interpretations of teaching.

Martina Charoensak – Arts Leader

As the outside world progresses and definitions of justice change, so does Killester and our response to those changes. This year, our theme of justice and the art of creativity went hand in hand, as both emphasise concepts of inclusiveness and adjusting. Not only did we all demonstrate inclusiveness through conserving our relationships and ensuring our mates that we were with them even in times of isolation, we also showed kindliness. Not only did we show we can adjust and work through multiple disruptions, we also showed strength.

Grace Wilson – Celebrations Leader

Celebrating is a significant way of rejoicing God and demonstrating gratitude. Throughout my years at Killester I always looked up at our leaders and wanted to be in their position one day and here I am. I wanted to hear the voices of students and celebrate everyone, not only as a cohort but as individuals. We celebrate together to share our joys and sorrows with each other.

Christine Nabalarua – Sport Leader

As I move on from this very long chapter in my life, I have made many memories I’ll never forget. Now, To the young women of Killester College, don’t be afraid to go out of your comfort zone, ask questions! And most importantly. Be kind and have strength in everything you do.

Leean Miranda – Environment and Sustainability Leader

If I asked all of you right now, what does every single human being have in common, what would you say? Among other things, the answer is the earth. So, it is our collective responsibility, as young women of Killester but also as citizens of the world to care for and protect the earth. That is how our theme of justice links to the environment. When each and every single one of us joins forces to help the earth. Because, individually we are just drops, but together, we can be as powerful as the ocean.

Julie Nguyen, Amber Jones, Lillian Vong and Tisha Barsenbach – House leaders

This past year has been a different one for all of us, but rather than dwelling on what we’ve missed out on, let's think about the things we’ve done this year to come together as houses. Killester is a place where friendly rivalry is encouraged and the spirit of competition thrives, whether it's on the playing field or in the classroom, we are always encouraged to do our very best and to get involved in the school community. This year our theme justice was demonstrated in hosting competitions and challenges virtually. Through this, we have given each individual an opportunity to participate in earning house points and contribute to the annual house cup. Who’s going to win this year? But at the end of the day, it is not only about winning such competitions but rather the core values of teamwork, fairness, and persistence gained from sport and every other opportunity here at school that will ultimately be instilled within us Killester girls that we will carry on forever.

Gemma Nicolaci – VCAL Leader

Even in the work that the VCAL Students participate in, we have used the theme Justice. This year we have shown justice when the VCAL Students made welcome back posters to all the students after returning from remote learning because it made all the students feel inclusive coming back in the Killester College Community. Also, when we made affirmation jars for St Joseph’s Primary School, we created the affirmation jars because we were thinking of the wider community and who could benefit from the affirmations that the VCAL Students created. We made a range of different types of exercises that we made for staff and students for everyone's wellbeing during remote learning. We thought it was a great idea to promote physical and mental health. We created a Time Capsule because we thought it was a great way for the school community to contribute during difficult times and we wanted to make sure that all members of the school community were included and involved.

Kezzia Chan and Giselle Kaaran – Music Leaders

Justice, the morally fair and right state of everything. Where everyone is treated equally. I have seen this in many students and teachers. Despite learning online, our school, Killester, still presents themselves with the moral value of justice. People around the world can express their need for justice through music.

Congratulations to the entire Year 12 cohort on completing 6 years of education. You all have good reason to be proud of yourselves in this challenging year. Best wishes for your final exams. The Killester community is cheering for you!

Regards

Luana Doko

Wellbeing Leader

Leadership in 2020 - Year 10 Perspective

Hanah Singhawansa (Arts Representative)

Although this year has been a crazy one, It was such a great experience being a part of the Year 10 leadership team. Being able to work as part of a team with my peers, contributing towards the school and being a voice for the year level was something I really enjoyed doing. While we have all been spending most of the year doing remote learning, the leadership team was able to stay proactive by organising things such as the Year 7 & 10 pen pal activity and the Year 10 online parent night. Both of which allowed us to continue serving our duties as leaders in the Year level, which was an awesome experience for all the leaders.

Jocelyn Johnson (Community Service Representative)

Leadership this year was just one big crazy rollercoaster, a year filled with big turns, ups and downs. This year has taught me a lot of life lessons on how to be a better person and leader for my peers and family. Leadership was a challenge but it’s an experience I would not trade for the world, it allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and experiment with new things. Even though we weren’t physically at school all thanks to our teachers, and coordinator Ms Luecke, we were able to experience this year almost like we were at school in person, acting as our Year level leaders.

Sharna Trinh (Celebrations Representative)

Being a part of leadership in 2020 has definitely been a unique experience. As opposed to talking to and in front of everyone, my actions and choices were mainly given over a screen. Even though I didn’t have as many opportunities to get involved than I would have, I still loved giving my ideas through Google Meets and being a spokesperson who introduced year 7s and 10s to pen pals. I also found it fun to be a part of and make many videos represented by the year 10 leaders. It’s a lot different to talking to a crowd but that’s what makes it so special and memorable.

Harleen Kaur (Community Service Representative)

I know a lot of this is moving pieces, and parts of a puzzle and no one really knows how this is going to shake out, especially in the past weeks, months. However, I would never say that this experience has been entirely terrible because, yes I didn't get to see my precious friends but that only made our bond stronger. Yes, we didn't have teachers physically there teaching us but that taught us to be grateful to have such figures that can pass on this valuable knowledge. Lastly, I am so thankful to be a Leader in this unique 2020 year because I have gained strengths and knowledge, about many skills especially communication with my peers. Communication and cooperation are the abilities we developed so we could use our role to help students that had their struggles in this time. There was a limit of the connection we could make between our peers and teachers as we could only use online sources such as email and google meets, but I think that was enough for our Killester community. We all wished that this pandemic wouldn’t have reached to such stages however as leader and student, we were flexible and dealt with it well. Thank you.

Prayer