Year 6 Excursion

Student Reflections

Charlotte

On Tuesday, the 4th of March, the Year 6s went to Grip!  A student leadership conference. 

You may be asking what does Grip even mean? Grip stands for Generosity, Responsibility, Integrity and People. I'd bet you could never guess how many students were there? 3700 students! Yeah, you heard me right that many! I was amazed at how the Grip team could get all of the students' attention. 

At the conference we played games that were linked to leadership! The first game we played was Would You Rather... But why would that be matched to leadership? The answer is ‘What I like best may not match the rest’! The game gave everyone a unique 4 digit code and we had to find others with the same code. We also watched some really inspiring clips from movies that matched up to the responsibilities of leaders. 

Now let's not forget the catch phrases. One of my favourites was ‘Conversations are more effective than instructions’. We would all have to agree on that! Did you know many leaders don’t achieve what they intended, because time goes by and the year has ended? We now know that to make changes, we have to make a plan and act quickly.

The conference gave me a lot of ideas for change around the school in 2025, here are a few of them:  

The bathrooms, they need some renovations. Maybe even painting some bricks. I’d also like to bring back some clubs like Sports Club. 

I have learnt so much about leadership from the conference! 

Maximillian

On Tuesday, the 4th of March, the Year 6's went to the GRIP Student Leadership Conference in the city. We had to get to school at 8:00 to catch the bus and then we boarded, off we went! When we reached the conference centre, we saw there were thousands of students, 3700 to be precise. 

When we got seated in the conference room, we were given these booklets that had a few activities that related to leadership. Then the GRIP team got out on the stage and started talking to us. We played a game called Would You Rather, but not the normal one, this one was cleverly laced with public speaking skills as we had to go around talking to other schools to see if anyone else liked the same things as you. After that game finished, they told us that most of us probably didn’t find anyone with the same code, and then he told us this catchy catchphrase that is linked with leadership, ‘What I like the best, may not suit the rest’.

Throughout the whole thing, they were telling us some catchy catch phrases that are about leadership, such as: ‘Fun is better than forced’, which tells us that if we were making a thing to change the school, more people will do it if it is fun. We were learning valuable leadership skills throughout the whole day through videos, movie clips, plays and more. One of the most important messages they had for us, in my opinion, was ‘There is always less time than you think’. After telling us that, they told us to always be realistic from the start, don’t exaggerate your idea, otherwise you will be doomed from the very minute you start. 

At the end, they had a Q/A time and that was when we learned what GRIP stands for. GRIP stands for Generosity, Responsibility, Integrity and People. They told us that it was their values, like how our school values are STAR. It was a very exciting day and I had lots of fun and learned lots of leadership skills. It also gave me great ideas about my leadership role and what I can do to change the school this year. Thank you Mrs Smith and Mrs O’Dwyer for taking us!

Alfred

At the conference, we learned to be kind to people who need it the most. And, we learned different ways that we can help other people. Walking back to school was interesting. There are so many places I haven't seen before in the city, and we went on a train.

Lucy

On Thursday, the 4th of March, all the Year 6s went to the GRIP conference, which stands for Generosity, Integrity, Responsibility and People. First of all, we played a game called Would You Rather and once the game was over, we all had a different code. Mine was SAGO. Then we had to go and find people from other schools to see if they have the same code. After that, we had to fill in the sentences that help us be good leaders, such as ‘Conversations are more effective than instructions’ and ‘Fun is more effective than feeling forced’. And lastly, they told us things we need to do as a leader. I learnt you need to be respectful and kind because that is what our leadership badge represents.

Bekim

On Tuesday, March 4th, Year 6 went to the Grip student leadership conference, where we learned about being a positive role model and having a positive influence on others. Considering we are in Grade 6, this is a must!

Bridget

On Tuesday, 4th March, the Year 6s went to the GRIP Student leadership conference. What's GRIP you may ask? Well, the G stands for generosity, the R stands for respect, the I stands for integrity and last but not least P stands for people!!

We played lots of fun games, especially with the ’Loud Noise Boys’ there. They were the people who got students up and going with some of their own jokes! Funny jokes! Anyway, they were both making the crowd smile with laughter. They told stories about people who were really interesting.

The Conference also taught us how we can be better leaders every day. They gave us little booklets to jot down our own ideas. The best part was that we got to meet new students on the way!

Oscar

I really enjoyed the conference! I liked how they told us some good stories. The games were the best and I liked how we had to learn things and that the games taught us things about leadership. I liked the Loud Noise game and I liked how they called me out to go on stage. They called people from other schools on stage too and we played a game. They had some badges for the winners, sadly our school did not get a badge, but it was so awesome!

Callum

GRIP Leadership Conference!!

On Tuesday, the 4th of March, the Year 6's went to a GRIP leadership Conference at the Melbourne Exhibit Centre in the City. GRIP is an acronym which means every letter stands for a word, GRIP stands for Generosity, Responsibility, Integrity, People. At the conference, we did a couple of games starting with a Would You Rather, where there were four questions and we had to put each of our answers into one of the boxes until we had all boxes complete. We then went around and tried to find other students from different schools that had the same answers as us. It was pretty easy to find six students considering there were over 200 schools and around 3,700 students in total. That was to help with our socialising skills and to show us that not everyone likes the same things and has the same ideas.

Next, we looked at the responsibilities of a student leader. One of my sentences was ‘Responsibility is more important than following a rule’. It's about taking ownership for the standards of our school. Then we wrote down an example of a time when a student at the school helped someone and switched it with another student from a different school. We then watched some clips and wrote what role of a leader we thought it was. We then had a loud noise break, with two of the staff, named Andy and Levi. We had a moment of screaming, then they chose six students from different schools to play a game of reverse charades. We then went on to look at Leadership Through Friendship, where they read out four scenarios and we wrote what type of friendship leadership it was. 

After the break, we looked at new Ideas to help others and talked about the phrase ‘What is best for you may not suit the rest’. Then we discussed that you may think you have enough time to achieve your goals before the end of the year, but you actually don't have much time. At the end of the conference, there was a “ Q and A session where students asked questions that they wanted to ask about. When we left we walked to Spencer Street Station and caught the train home.

Jamie

On Tuesday, the 4th of March, the Year 6's went to the GRIP student leadership conference. GRIP is a company that focuses on showing children how to be a responsible and good leader. In the conference, they taught us about the responsibilities of a leader, new ideas for us and how to achieve our goals on time. We also played many games such as a special version of Would You Rather, where you try to match up with other people. At the end of the Would You Rather game, they talked about how it was difficult to match up with other people and they said that “What we might like best may not match the rest”. We also did a movie clip quiz and watched videos to match up to different leadership values.

In every session, we would also have a segment called Loud Noises where we had to be as loud as possible! Overall, we learnt a bunch of things about being a leader while having a good time in the process.

Max

On Tuesday, the 4th of March, the Year 6's went to the GRIP Student Leadership Conference. GRIP stands for Generosity, Responsibility, Integrity and People. We played lots of games at our leadership conference, but they weren’t just any old games. The first game we played was Would You Rather, the meaning of playing was that what you like doesn't always match everybody else. We played lots of other games in this segment called Loud Noises. Once every session, the Loud Noise Boys would come out and do a show, there would be volunteers. If you have ever done brain breaks during class, it was like that, just educational! At some points in the conference, we talked to other students from other schools, there were a massive 3700 students! I learned a lot of beneficial things, like don’t try to force people to do things, be fun so that they want to join in. Another thing I learned was that time flies and you never have as much as you think.

Victor

On Tuesday, the 4th of March, the Year 6 students went into the city to attend a GRIP Student Leader Conference. GRIP stands for Generosity, Responsibility, Integrity and People. At the conference we learnt a lot of things. It was very fun as well. We got to play a lot of games and they are all about leadership, but we're going to leave that now. I am going to talk about what we have learnt in the student conference. At the very start we played a game called Would You Rather? After we played the game, we ended up with a four-digit code and we had to try to find someone from another school with the same code. The things that we learnt in the first lesson were about being an example to others. One of the sentences that we wrote down was ‘Responsibility is more than following a rule, it’s about taking ownership for the standards of our school.’  

Pip

On Tuesday, the 4th of March, 6SO went to the GRIP conference. There were sooo many schools there and if you took one student from every school that was there, then that would be more students than our whole school! 

If you're wondering what GRIP stands for, it's Generosity, Responsibility, Integrity and People. 

First, we went into the conference seating place. There were super comfy chairs with cool side tables. It was like an aeroplane. There was one big screen and side screens so you could see from every angle. We were learning, but at the same time playing games, so it was very entertaining. We got little booklets to jot down answers and ideas. This excursion gave us ideas for what to do as leaders. Overall, it was a very exciting experience!