Halogen Young Leaders Day

Last Tuesday, our student leaders attended the National Young Leaders Day in Sydney. This is Australia's largest gathering of young leaders and an annual fixture on the calendars of thousands of primary and secondary schools. It provides a unique opportunity for students to gather at a world-class event venue to hear from some of Australia’s most high-profile people as they share insights from their own leadership journeys. The following is a recount of our student leaders' experience.

Our Day at the Halogen Leadership Conference

Last Tuesday, at 8:30am, six of our school leaders met Mrs Holland at Darling Harbour, just near Betty's Burgers, excited for an amazing day ahead. Once everyone had arrived we gathered our things and headed to the entrance of the one, the only International Convention Centre in Sydney (TicTok Centre). Over 4000 students from all around NSW had come to this event to learn from well-known Australians about outstanding leadership and to create new memories. 

When we got inside the venue, people flooded into the theater, rushing to get the best seats possible. After most of us had taken our seats, our wonderful host Andy greeted us with the fun and tricky Clinker Challenge! Once that had passed, Dance Curriculum arrived on the stage hitting the best moves ever. They even taught us the PUMP IT UP dance!

Next, we were met with the Cathrine Laga'aia who is the real-life action Moana! We all enjoyed hearing about her life through acting and her leadership skills, and we can't forget about how she told us that she accidentally punched Dwayne "The ROCK" Johnson in the face while filming the movie ... imagine that!  

Next up we listened to Jessica Yates - the journalist, author and one of the commentators from Fox Sport who wrote “Lets Go Racing," the engaging kids book. She gets to interview famous people from all around the world, such as Oscar Perazlie. We learned from her that reading is essential for getting through life and can help you greatly.

After the unbeatable Jessica Yates we welcomed Nick Hudson to the stage. This man decided to invent a wonderful program called The Push Up Challenge. On the first day the challenge was released, the app system crashed, disappointing over 100 000 people who had just downloaded the new app. Then another more serious disaster struck. Nick found out he had something wrong with his heart and part of it needed to be replaced. Luckily, after and operation and some time, he made a full recovery. Overall, he taught us about so many things for example to keep going and never give up on your dreams. Did you know the replacement part for his heart is actually cow tissue?

Our final unknown, mystery presenter was Jacqui Bell, who was the youngest person ever to complete an ultra-marathon on all seven continents! She taught us to always be courageous, brave and to believe in yourself even when things are hard, like the many times Jacqui wanted to quit but pushed herself to complete the runs to the very finish.

Some of the great leadership qualities we learnt are to always be brave, show compassion and empathy to everyone even if they don't show it back to others. Said by Jess Yates herself, read a book out loud for just 5 minutes and you’ll feel better in an instant. We surely can't forget how Mrs Holland bought us the Halogen pin as a memento of the day. 

Thank you so much to our parents and St Joseph's School for making the Halogen Young Leaders Day possible for us. We will carry the lessons we learned with us throughout our lives.

Written by Grace Hall, Sarah Crittenden, Ari Pollard, Jackson Mallon, Maeve Gordon and Pippa Richards.