Young leaders get a GRIP

Students from Bridgetown High School and Kearnan College attended a student leadership conference in Bunbury last Wednesday.
Members of both schools’ leadership teams attended the GRIP conference, which hosted talks focused on different aspects of student leadership, delivered by former student leaders.
Some of the topics included leadership priorities, making meetings effective, generosity, leading exciting events, teamwork, peer leadership, engaging speeches and positive partnerships with teachers.
“The reason that we send our student forum and house captains to GRIP every year is it gives them the opportunity to participate in activities and workshops as well as build social networks with school leaders from other nearby schools,” Bridgetown High School student services coordinator Jo Loton said.
School captain at Bridgetown High School Sophie Boswell said she found hearing the personal experiences of the conference presenters the most valuable aspect of the experience.
“They shared lots of fundraising ideas that worked really well for them when they were student leaders and different ways to twist up old fundraisers to make them new and more exciting,” she said.
Kearnan College head boy Reilly Burvill said he enjoyed the variety of topics on offer at the conference and the ability to choose which elective seminars he attended.
“You could learn on a personal level, as well as on a school level,” he said. Kearnan’s assistant head of secondary Aaron Pedlar praised the conference’s approach to teaching leadership skills.
“They aim to be as practical as possible so student leaders can go back to their school and put things into practice,” he said.
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