The Leader In Me

SARAH CAFFREY

Leadership Facilitator

IPSHA School Leaders Event

On Monday 27th May our School Leaders represented Oakleigh Grammar at the IPSHA School Leaders Event. This event is designed to bring Primary School Leaders from all around Melbourne together to share their leadership perspectives, and to work in synergy to become even stronger leaders themselves.

I am immensely proud of each of these courageous individuals. Perhaps the biggest challenge of the day was the very first task. Each student was designated to a team to work with for the rest of day. It was wonderful to observe eight strangers coming together and stepping out of their comfort zones to introduce themselves, and invite others to share stories of what makes them an effective leader.

This is no small task for young people and it is something adults sometimes find challenging.  There were a few moments of silence, then the room began to buzz with chatter and smiles as the students shared their stories, and recognised both similarities and differences in each other, then found ways to celebrate this. True leadership qualities shining.

I watched our four students grow in confidence throughout the day as they whole heartedly participated in each task.  Activities included, guiding each other through obstacle whilst blindfolded, cryptic clue solving and lots of conversations about being a school leader now, and about bringing initiates to action in their own schools.

I look forward to sharing with you some of the exciting ideas our Oakleigh Grammar Junior School Leaders would like to build on.

To share this experience, our School Leaders will be running condensed activities with our current Year 4 cohort, as a means of developing the Junior School Leaders of 2020.