SPOTLIGHT

YEAR 6

Leadership Day

       Leadership Day at St Nicholas Primary School                                                 2024

Leadership Day is a day to remember that we all have responsibilities and on this leadership day, we walked into a world of encouragement, kindness, and teamwork. We were challenged with games and tasks that would test our ability to work together, as we also listened to inspiring speakers who taught us the value of teamwork.

When we walked into our hub for most of the day, (the Auditorium), we said a quick prayer and were sorted into groups by indications in our slips, which contained the things we needed for the day, (including a couple of entirely necessary treats from Mrs Elliott). We also got special pens that Mrs Kelly organised for us.

After jotting down a few notes about what makes a good leader and identifying our strengths and weaknesses while working in a group, we started our first challenge, the paddle challenge, where we identified what made certain people a good leader, by holding up either the red or green side of a card. We then received our second challenge for the day, the hula hoop challenge. In this challenge, we were presented with a task. The groups had to link arms with a hula hoop hanging on their arms and pass it around the circle without breaking the circle.

After that, we listened to our first speaker, Kirk Kelly, a member of the Westpac rescue service. He told us about his job, how long he worked there, and some of the equipment involved and taught us many values of being a leader. 

After break we Zoom called our second speaker, Greg Moran, a quadriplegic comedian and actor who also told us some more of the values of being a leader.

After reflecting on our time with the speakers we started one of the best activities of the day, the fashion show. In this activity, each group chose a “model” and worked in groups to create clothing for that person out of newspaper and colored cards (with encouraging quotes on the pieces of paper) and display it on a catwalk down the middle of the Auditorium. Once we had cleaned up the Auditorium, our third and final speakers, the McCarthy school captains, talked to us about high school leadership and how to display leadership to others.

After that, we had a sausage sizzle at the front of the school with the McCarthy captains sitting with us and telling us a bit more about high school.

We then left the Auditorium and walked down the stairs to the undercroft, where we sat in anticipation for the teachers to explain the final activity, The Amazing Race, where we had to work as a team to complete activities such as blindfolded hockey, crocodile river, five-legged race, and boogie or build.

Finally, we finished up with some leadership awards, and the winning team, light blue, was presented with awards, and we thanked the teachers for setting this amazing day up for us, truly this leadership day is a day to remember.

Written by, Noah Walmsley, Jaxon Fenn and Jason Ibenije

HALOGEN YOUNG LEADERS DAY 2024

Speakers

• Anastasia Woolmer
• Matt Cosgrove and Eva Amors
• Stephon O’Keefe
• Bryson Klein   

Written by: Ivy Rodda, Carter Brown, Ben van Aanholt, Aggie Daly, Tilly Klasen, Oliver Mulligan, Azarlee Ramirez and Charlie Williams. 

We walked into the great big convention center and saw thousands of people dancing and  singing along to 3 hip hop dancers wearing bright orange, teaching us some groovy moves. DJ Raqh came onto the stage, he was the one and only host of  the national Halogen Leadership day.  

He welcomed to the stage the first speaker,  Anastasia Woollmer, who  was awarded “Australian memory champion,” 2 years in a row and could memorise numbers backward using pictures! 

Then we had a short break and got young leaders day badges thanks to Mikale Mulligan, then Ivy got chosen to do a dance move on the stage in front of THOUSANDS of people and she chose to floss. The next speaker was Eva Amores and Matt Cosgrove, the two authors of the new book series, “The Worst Week Ever.” Matt taught us to draw the main character in The Worst Week Ever and Macca the Alpaca only using the letters YOU. They also did challenges like drawing the main character of The Worst Week Ever in 3 seconds! And drawing Macca in 5 seconds. The  third speaker was a recently retired cricketer from the Sydney Sixers. Can you guess who? Stephen O'Keefe! He talked to us about how he got to where he is and how he never gave up and always bounced back even if he didn’t make the team. He also let some of the students hold and wear his baggy green. If you were lucky enough to see him, you could get a pink rubber ball that looks like a cricket ball. The fourth and final speaker was a Ninja Warrior and he talked to us about always persevering and having fun with everything you do,  and to always BE THE NAPKIN. 

It was a truly amazing experience!

MaST News

I am looking forward to seeing parents in the Auditorium following the Primary open classrooms at 8:45 am tomorrow.

The workshop will focus on mathematical reasoning in the new NSW Mathematics syllabus and how we can assist our children in communicating their thinking effectively.

Last week we featured a brain teaser to exercise these skills. Below is an example of one way of answering one of these types of questions.