School for Student Leadership

Melissa Brown

School for Student Leadership Coordinator

The School for Student Leadership is a Department of Education (Victoria) program that aims to provide experiential education that supports the personal growth, aspirations and transformation of students as global citizens. 

Students make written application to enter the program,  and undertake an interview as part of the selection process. Student applications are called for via Compass newsfeed in the year prior to attendance (Year 8).

We are the School for Student Leadership...and our Mission is to provide an immersive State-wide residential program for Year 9 Government school students which enables them to grow into better citizens and leaders through increased self-awareness, social engagement, community connection and environmental stewardship.

This year, six BSC students enrolled into the program, attending the Don Valley Campus. Spending most of Term 2 on site, they participated in a varied range of learning activities and enjoyed the opportunity immensely.  

Read their reflection to get a fuller picture of their experience.

Hi everyone, we are Ruby, Lachie, Chloe, Gemma, Will and Ben.  We are the group of students who participated in the School for Student Leadership program (SSL) at the Don Valley Campus in Term 2. 

The SSL is a program where 40 students from 8 different schools across Victoria live on campus together for two months, learning important leadership and life skills. At SSL, instead of learning 'normal' subjects like Maths and Science, we learned about the nine key learning concepts: respectful relationships, collaboration, identity, environments, health and wellbeing, emotional management, resilience, learning strategies and empathy. 

A lot of the program was student-led, so you got back what you put into the experience, which allowed people to grow as individuals as well as us all growing as a greater community. We did a lot of outdoor activities, such as mountain biking, white water canoeing, overnight camping trips and caving. We linked our experiences [in the] outdoors back into the learning concepts, and learned how to improve as team members and members of a larger community. The whole experience was incredible, and we all would recommend any future Year 9 students to apply for it because it is an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity. You can see some of our activities in the pictures here.

Project

As part of the program, we had to design and organise a project to take back to our local areas as a way of thanking our school and community for allowing us to have such an amazing experience. We decided that an issue that affects many people in our local community is food insecurity, and we wanted to find a way to help with this. We thought that the best way to help with this was to organise a food drive at our school. 

In the weeks leading up to the Twilight Market (November 22) we will have boxes around school available for people to put food into which we will then donate to Foodbank. We will hold a stall at the Twilight Market for families to bring in donations as well. Look out for any future updates, and raid your pantries. 

We look forward to your donations!