Junior School Council

On Friday 11th March our amazing JSC Leaders participated in a Leadership coaching workshop with Leadership Coach Gary Ryan. The coaching sessions took place in the morning and focused on building the leadership skills of our Junior School Council (JSC) Leaders beginning with the Prep, Year 1 and 2 Leaders in the first session and the Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 Leaders in the second session. Our JSC leaders walked out of the session with a deeper understanding of initiative, collaboration and courage. 

Our leaders shared the following thoughts: 

Ishika Varun Nair from 4E

First we made an anchor chart looking at Leadership and Initiative. We thought of words that connected with leadership and made examples such as three examples of effective leadership. 

Initiative is when you do something without being told to do it.  I told myself internally that when you are demonstrating initiative it has to be something nice that you think will really help somebody. Sometimes the decision to take initiative can be hard and it feels like you are taking a risk. 

We then did a juggling exercise where there were between 2 and 3 students in a group requiring a student to be a coach to help someone learn how to juggle. I took a risk teaching a student something I am not an expert at. 

Arnav Kundu from 6B

First we talked about what we could do to self-regulate and what the meaning of service learning is. We learnt that Service Learning is about taking risks and having good self-talk about everything you do, being respectful to everyone and everything around you. 

We then put service learning and risk taking into action when we participated in a juggling task. Before we learnt about juggling, the coaches needed to know about how to coach the students through the act of juggling. I learnt that in order to effectively coach somebody you need to be explicit and also make it easier to understand. I was a student and I learnt that the coaches actually knew how to juggle, therefore they were able to teach it. They also were able to model the actions so that the student didn’t have to just follow instructions. This will help me become a better leader through being approachable and confident. If a student asks a question I can then think of a timely and detailed response. 

Max Zhang from Prep C

We went up to the gym and worked with other students to make a tower out of straws, I collaborated with some preps and year 1’s. Everyone had a role and mine was to draw and colour the straws. We made sure it didn’t fall and made it as high as possible. I was a leader because I helped others in my group and came up with some good ideas.

Eva Shrestha from 2D

I remember that when we had our leadership coaching session I sat down with an anchor chart with three markers. We made an anchor chart about teamwork and leadership. In order to achieve teamwork you have to work together. In leadership you have a big responsibility because you have to have important meetings and make decisions about the school. We then built a boat plus a tower to make it beautiful, strong and tall. Everyone had a job such as ripping sticky tape, building and colouring. I demonstrated team work because I was working together with the team, took advice.

The JSC have already begun planning their 2022 actions incorporating many of the leadership skills and strategies identified in the workshop. With the day being such a wonderful success, we are looking to set up another Leadership Coaching Day later in Term 2. Stay tuned for a very exciting year for the Glen Waverley Primary School Junior School Council. 

Mr Welsh