The opportunity for young people to take on leadership roles in a school environment allows them the scope to take risks with their leadership in a safe and supported environment amongst their teachers and peers.
At Mernda Primary School we strongly advocate for student leadership opportunities and for the value of student voice, we therefore aim to provide many opportunities for formal and informal leadership positions for our students.
Some of the formal student leadership roles offered at Mernda Primary School include:
School Captains
Captaincy roles at Mernda Primary include Whole School and House Captain, Vice-Captain and Performing Arts Captain positions. We believe in providing students with positions of leadership in their final year of primary schooling in order to further develop the confidence of aspiring young leaders. Mernda Primary staff work regularly with these captains and provide workshops and opportunities around developing skills such as public speaking, symbolic leadership and problem solving.
Our captains work hard throughout the year to lead school assemblies, manage and run school events and they provide student voice through consulting with staff around whole school issues. School captains are much respected positions of responsibility and successful applicants represent our Mernda Primary community to the highest degree.
Student Representative Council (SRC)
The Student Representative Council (SRC) is comprised of students from Year 3-6. The students of the SRC have the opportunity to become involved student leaders and to make decisions on behalf of our students at Mernda PS. An SRC member is chosen at the beginning of each year from each 3-6 class to represent their peers. All members are assigned a buddy grade from Foundation to Year 2.
The SRC hold meetings every term where discussions are held and decisions are made on fundraising events for our school, support of our local community and to plan for exciting and fun days where all our students can get involved.
Throughout the year, the SRC are taught leadership skills such as enhancing their communication with students and teachers, decision making, working alongside our local community and surveying their peers to ensure all students ideas and concerns are being heard and addressed.
ICT Whiz Kids
As part of Mernda Primary’s student leadership program, there are opportunities for children in Year 4 and 5 to apply for the position of ‘ICT Whiz Kid’.
Through this program these selected students develop in their Digitech and Leadership capabilities through attending fortnightly meetings with the Digitech Leading Teacher and school technician. The Whiz Kids explore new technologies such as movie making, photography and program development and design. They also learn to support the school and their teachers through troubleshooting common software and hardware issues and help throughout the year to keep our school’s digital devices running smoothly.
Personal & Social Capability Student Leaders (PSC)
Our Peer Support Leaders are selected from the Year 5 cohort on the recommendation of their teachers in the previous year. They are chosen because of their demonstrated ability to be responsible, show empathy and support others.
These leaders are offered this dedicated opportunity and eagerly take pride in their role to assist others. Their personal and social capabilities are developed throughout the year as they are coached to fulfil their duties and guided to give aid to fellow students.
The Peer Support Leaders work together to facilitate co-operative play in the playground. They run games and clubs to encourage students to meet and make friends with people that they may not already know. Another important duty is the induction to newly enrolled students. Twice a term a meeting is run where these leaders explain the structures of our school from a peer perspective and answer any questions that new pupils may have.
The distribution of VIVO awards and School Wide Positive Behaviour peer teaching are additional areas of responsibility for this group who promote inclusion and co-operation.
Mernda Primary provides many opportunities for young learners to develop their leadership capabilities throughout their primary school years and we encourage our emerging leaders to step up and apply for these positions.