Identifying Leadership Purpose – Sacred Heart Primary School

A critical area of leadership that we encourage teachers and students to focus on is purpose. Finding purpose as an individual and as a team helps guide leadership behaviour and assist in decision making. It also provides clarity to the why and helps us understand why we do what we do.

Sacred Heart Primary School in Mildura tasked their Student Leadership Team (SLT) with identifying what their purpose was within their school community. The ensuing actions of the SLT not only demonstrate the power of identifying purpose but opened up the opportunity to seek student voice across the year level and design a purpose that was reflective of every year 6 student.

In this edition of our Client Success Story we hear from Assistant Principal Jacinda Deacon and School Captain Zac De Rosa who discuss the process and outcomes of identifying a leadership purpose.

‘At one of our first Student Leadership Team (SLT) meetings for the year we discussed the purpose of the SLT, what it means, what we would like it to mean, what it looks like and what we would like it to look like.

Each member of the core SLT was asked to write their own Statement of Purpose after developing some ideas as a group. During a subsequent SLT meeting, students shared their ideas as to what they thought the SLT purpose is and these were collated.

From this point our two Year 6 classes discussed their ideas around what they thought was the purpose the SLT, keeping in mind that they were all leaders and part of the SLT at Sacred Heart Primary School. These ideas were also collated and during a third follow up core SLT meeting, we formulated the ideas into a shared understanding of the what the purpose of the SLT is at Sacred Heart Primary School.

We have revisited our Statement of Purpose a number of time since it’s development so that our shared vision is sustained.’ Jacinda Deacon (Assistant Principal & Student Leadership Team Co-ordinator)

‘In student leadership this year having a voice is very important for all of our class members. By sharing our ideas and opinions we will come up with positive changes and new ideas for our school community. Our student leadership team is encouraged to speak up, have a go and to acknowledge each and everyone’s ideas and opinions.

During term one, our major achievement was for every family at our school to be given a family vine leaf to decorate at home and return to school to become part of a mural of our whole school community. This has turned out to be a great success for our leadership team and we cannot wait to see the finished product.’ Zac De Rosa (School Captain)

So, what does the leadership purpose look like? Glad you asked, here is the Sacred Heart Student Leadership Team Statement of Purpose.

The Student Leadership Team (SLT) at Sacred Heart Primary School is representative of the whole school student body. The team consists of a core body of students from Years Five and Six, as the Executive Team. This team feeds back to the whole group and the rest of the school community.

The SLT’s primary purpose is to be a voice for each and every student in the school. We consider the whole Year Six cohort to be anintegral part of the SLT; working together, making decisions and implementing initiatives for the good of the whole school. Our SLT will endeavour to bring about positive change to the school community via small and larger projects. The major goals of the SLT are to inspire others, to model to other students what it means to be a good leader, to become the best person that they can be and to be a positive influence on future generations of leaders at Sacred Heart Primary School.

The SLT, together with the Year Five and Year Six student body, will develop critical leadership skills via the Leaders of Evolution – Young Leaders in Schools Course and harnessing the 4 C’s of Learning Framework. This course is new to Sacred Heart and we believe that it will enhance the skills needed by the students, to develop into productive leaders, with a passion to bring about change in a positive way.

The thought that schools are providing the opportunities and scaffold for students to deeply understand their purpose and roles is exciting and we congratulate the team at Sacred Heart on achieving this. These opportunities to engage student voice and guide the leadership learning journey are critical elements of a successful student leadership strategy.

Well done Zac, Jacinda and the rest of the Year 6 students. Best wishes for a successful 2019.

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With a little guidance the Leaders of Evolution team publish content on behalf of our valued clients. Students, educators and professionals share their successes and insights reflecting on our leadership journey together.