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TIPS FOR TEACHERS WORKING WITH STUDENT LEADERS

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© GRIP Leadership Pty Ltd, 2016.

To contact GRIP Leadership:www.gripleadership.com

The title and concept of this book are subject to copyright; however the ideas and suggestions are not. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior permission in writing from GRIP Leadership Pty Ltd.

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Contents

Chapter 1 Tips for Leading the Way 1

Chapter 2 Tips for Making Meetings Effective 7

Chapter 3 Tips for Making Students Less Reliant on You 13

Chapter 4 Tips for Assembling the Ideal Student Leadership Team 19

Chapter 5 Tips for Helping Students Run Events 26

Chapter 6 Tips for Training and Developing Student Leaders 33

Chapter 7 Tips for Raising the Profile of Student Leadership in Your School 41

Chapter 8 Tips for Involving Many Students in Leadership 48

Chapter 1TIPS FOR LEADING THE WAY

101 Tips For Teachers Working With Student Leaders

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#1. Lead and Contribute in MeetingsOne of the best things that you can do as a teacher working alongside younger leaders is model the way. When it’s time for the student leadership team’s regular meeting, let them see what ‘leading and contributing in meetings’ looks like. Practically, this can be displayed by having (and using) a well-prepared agenda, kick starting the brainstorming process with a few suggestions that you have prepared in advance, and inviting contributions from all members at the meeting. Not only will this type of intentional approach lead to a more productive meeting in the short term, it will make an investment in members of the group who may be called on to lead team meetings as the year proceeds.

#2. Plan Events and Meetings When it comes to student leadership teams, the process of gathering ideas can often be quite fruitful, but the planning process can sometimes leave a little to be desired. Planning, and the ability to consider and order the necessary details to bring an idea to fruition, is a skill that develops over time. This is a skill that an intentional teacher can contribute to the overall success of the team. Events and meetings are great places to start and the planning process, if well documented, can be used in the future as a template to jump start the more detailed side of your team’s event preparation.

#3. Accountability – the Power of ‘Together’

Accountability is a sign of maturity, and this statement holds true for individuals as well as groups. Accountability, quite simply, is the idea that individuals and groups ought to give account for the things for which they are responsible. In the context of student leadership, this will often express itself through areas like action lists – a list of tasks with deadlines, and with people’s names attached to each task. One strategy for leading the way in this area is to begin with yourself. Make sure that on each action list, your name is featured somewhere. That way, when it comes time to review the action list at the next meeting, you can lead the way, demonstrating that accountability is positive and inclusive of everyone and not just about ‘checking up’ on people. After setting this example it will become easier for the rest of the group to report in about their items, allowing everyone the space to communicate and move forward from a place of openness.

Tips For Leading The Way

#4. Sift Ideas – Are they Good or Great?

When the time comes to gather ideas from the team, you can end a fruitful brainstorming session with piles of possibility on the table. The next step can be critical for the success of the team moving forward: How do you sort out the good ideas from the great ones? A helpful three-point checklist can streamline the decision making process:

a) Is the idea aligned with your school values/identity?b) Is this something that the school community (students/staff/etc.) will be enthusiastic about and

support?c) Is this something that will leave a positive legacy once this year has finished?

Not every idea needs to check each of these boxes, but it does allow for a sifting of ideas where some exciting ideas might be left in favour of more significant or meaningful ideas. As with other suggestions in this chapter, it can help to model this process by bringing a few high-level ideas to the table yourself as well as one or two ‘lesser ideas’. Follow this with an explanation as to why you think they are not quite the right fit for the team.

#5. ‘Show the Strings’ (or, ‘This is What We Are Doing Right Now…’)

This strategy can work in a group situation, but is often most effective in a one-on-one mentoring situation. Encouraging students to ‘watch for the process’ during meetings, helping them to notice when meetings start, end, transition between agenda items, etc. will allow your leaders to critically engage with meetings and other gatherings, as well as empower them to lead effectively when it is their turn to chair a meeting or run an agenda. You may choose to run a meeting debrief for two minutes after things have concluded, and during this time invite a few leaders who show particular potential to participate. Walk them through the meeting, and point out the path that was travelled from opening the meeting to closing. Gradually, they will bring a greater awareness to the table that will potentially spread to other members of the team.


#6. Bring in Other LeadersThis is a great strategy to lead the way for your student leadership team. Other older leaders can contribute in two fundamental ways – they can reinforce the team’s values and strategies with the power of an ‘outside voice’ (one that your team doesn’t hear regularly), and secondly they can illustrate the power of difference – different styles of communication, perhaps, or different leadership strengths and talents. Both of these benefits can empower your student leaders in numerous ways, and ensure that the messages that you are trying to impart don’t get lost simply because the ‘messenger’ is the same every week.

#7. Lead a Small Event First to Set the Standard

Depending on your leadership team, you may have a group of students who have never organised or led an event before. This is not uncommon for young leaders, and it provides the opportunity for a staff member to show the way forward and to set the standard. A simple event, perhaps for just the student leadership team, could be an excellent example to set for how events should be prepared, advertised, and run. Your small event could even be styled as a leadership team launch, but it ought to follow a clear format that establishes a pattern for future student leadership events to come. By showing the way in the lead up as well as during the event, it becomes a shared experience that can be referred back to throughout the year.

#8. Model a Leader’s SpeechCommunication is one of the most important aspects of any functional relationship, and the ability to communicate effectively is also a hallmark of a good leader. Modelling a leader’s speech will set the standard for how students communicate with one another during meetings and other gatherings, which will in turn flow out into other expressions in the wider school community. One of the best strategies in this regard is to reverse-engineer your approach. In short, reverse engineering means to start with the end goal or product in mind, and work backwards to reveal the necessary steps. How would you like your students to communicate with one another?• Professionally, when dealing with leadership-related activities?• Patiently and with understanding, knowing that this team is an additional responsibility?• Clearly, so that all involved are aware of expectations and deadlines?

Whatever the characteristics that make your final list, begin there and work backwards. In doing so, you’ll also discover the list of qualities that will inform your own interactions.

#9. Share Insights into Your Leadership Responsibilities

While you may not think that your role and its associated responsibilities are particularly glamorous, they can actually be quite interesting to young student leaders. Many will never have thought about the ‘mechanics’ of how a school actually runs, and how similar some of the tasks and responsibilities are to their own student leadership context. Showing your students that you also have a list of items that you are responsible for, and people to whom you are accountable, will help to normalise some of their transition into a new student leadership environment. This can highlight the importance of the associated new standards and expectations.

#10. Volunteer Yourself for TasksNot only does this strategy demonstrate a willingness to participate, it also models two key characteristics of good leadership; namely, participation and integrity. It is always easier to follow leaders who declare ‘Do as I do!’ rather than those who only offer a ‘Do as I say’ style of leadership. There are certainly times when directive leadership and task delegation are the best approach, but demonstrating early in the year that you’re ‘part of the team’ will not only set a good culture, it will send a message that leadership is not just about allocating jobs to others, it’s about showing the way by setting a practical example.

#11. Model the Right AttitudeThis particular strategy becomes increasingly important when things aren’t going well – either because an event has hit a planning or practical snag, or because pressure is building up around deadlines. Having the right attitude in these situations can make a world of difference, and sometimes students need to ‘see it’ before they can adopt it. If they are exposed to mature leaders who respond well when they are under pressure, they can learn from this and apply it to their own situations. By the same token, when things go well, it can be great to celebrate the contribution of others in the team, rather than absorbing praise for oneself. This sets a good example to student leaders not to claim group success as their own, but rather celebrate the strength of the team and the individual contributions that have enabled that success.

Tips For Leading The Way


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#12. Value Punctuality and DeadlinesThe ability for things to happen ‘on time’ is valued in all areas of life. All of us expect flights and other transport to arrive and depart on time; bills need to be paid on time; complex projects need previous items to be completed on time to allow others to begin. This particular tip clearly relates to the earlier section on ‘accountability’, and encourages students to be open with their communication. Practically, this can be highlighted during meetings – praising the group when meetings start on time, expressing how you personally value these things, and (as with each of these suggestions), modelling it in your own actions. If you have one or two students that tend to struggle in this area, a one-on-one conversation, coupled with some practical strategies is often the best approach. (Those strategies could be: factoring in extra time, breaking tasks down into smaller sections, starting early, etc.)

Chapter 2TIPS FOR MAKING MEETINGS EFFECTIVE

Tips for Making Meeting Effective

#13. Have a Clear Purpose for Your Meeting

When people are asked to gather together and give time to something, it’s always helpful to know why! Meetings are more effective when they have a clear purpose, and one that the team is aware of. The two key aspects of this tip are: make sure your meeting purpose is well articulated and clearly communicated. A clear purpose will allow your team to prepare practically as well as mentally. Clearly communicating the purpose will ensure that everyone is on the same page, setting your meeting up to be as successful as possible. You could give each meeting a title, or a ‘key focus area’, and you may choose to include this information in your meeting reminder that is sent out in advance.

#14. Prepare and Circulate an AgendaMaking sure that there is a clear agenda circulated in advance can really get your meeting off to a fast and focused start. While it does require some additional preparation, this is an investment that pays great dividends during and following your meeting. Giving students time to read an agenda and prepare for an upcoming meeting can help to keep meeting time focused, and can also reinforce that certain tasks or jobs are due for reporting and/or completion. This saves you needing to follow up each task or person prior to each meeting. Like other strategies, it can bear great results if it becomes a habit and part of your student leadership team’s culture.

#15. Assemble the Resources You May Need

This tip is, in some way, the practical outworking of the previous tip on agenda writing – systematically working through your meeting and gathering each item you might need to make that section or topic as effective as possible. Many meetings struggle with this aspect – the discussion topic made it to the agenda, but with a little additional thought and preparation to the necessary resources (such as extra paper, whiteboard, markers, computer, samples). This strategy ensures that time isn’t wasted, and discussion areas aren’t consistently pushed back to the next meeting (when suitable resources are planned to be available).


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#16. Channel the ConversationOnce the meeting has actually started, it takes an experienced meeting leader to channel the conversation. This is not always an easy task, and you may wrestle with a variety of different challenges depending on your team. At times, the conversation can be hijacked by an individual with much to say; at other times, you can end up side-tracked by tangents and other off-topic chat; still other times it can be a complete lack of discussion or enthusiasm at all! Whatever the challenge, channelling the conversation is an art form, and does take time to develop. Preparation is the key, and having strategies for likely scenarios is always a helpful approach. Having a sentence or two ready if someone is monopolising the conversation can be quite effective in advancing the discussion; gently reminding the group of the current topic can calm and focus a group that is in the middle of a tangent; and asking leading questions can be an excellent approach to stimulate discussion when the team is feeling a bit sluggish.

#17. Keep to Time!This tip is important for many reasons, and is as important in a micro sense as it is in a macro sense. Starting and finishing a meeting on time is important, as it communicates that people’s time is valuable, as well as fostering trust within the members of the team that advertised times will be adhered to. In addition to this macro level, keeping to time within a meeting is equally important. If one section of the agenda is taking up too much time, have a strategy in place to move the meeting along. Whether you choose to allocate projected durations for each agenda item, or whether there is a ’10 minute rule’ imposed for all items…unless a topic is urgent, additional discussion can always take place between meetings, or at the commencement of the next scheduled meeting. Don’t forget the under/over principle – finishing a discussion or a meeting a little under time is always a better idea than dragging it over time.

#18. The Importance of Meeting Summaries

Student leadership meetings are only one part of a student leader’s calendar, which in turn makes up one small part of their overall school calendar, which in turn makes up…you get the picture. Meeting summaries are an excellent strategy for reminding and condensing a meeting into a page or two (a meeting summary shouldn’t exceed two pages, under normal circumstances). People can read it as an action item checklist, or even as a refresher before the next meeting in order to get into the right headspace and prepare any relevant ideas. Additionally, it provides a track record for your team that demonstrates the worth of these meetings – being able to look back over meeting summaries will show that even in the midst of tasks and discussion and decision, meaningful contributions are being made by the group.

#19. Action Items Help EveryoneMany meeting agendas (or summaries for that matter) fail to take advantage of this vital aspect of an effective meeting. Having an action items list is an important step toward answering the ‘so…what now?’ questions following a student leadership meeting. Discussion, ideas, planning…all of these elements are fantastic, but at the end of the meeting, it’s important to dedicate time to the questions of ‘what are we actually committed to doing? An effective action list will have three simple parts to it: The name of the task, the name of the person who is responsible for it, and the completion deadline. You may choose to add other sections that deal with resources, etc. – but these three core areas will ensure that your action items list is something that provides clarity as well as accountability.

#20. Involve Others in Leading (Role Allocation)

This tip is less about titles and more about responsibilities and function within a meeting context. Having someone allocated to take meeting minutes will ensure that important information is not forgotten, and will make the meeting summary much easier to compile. Having students lead discussion areas that they are involved in will encourage engagement and a sense of personal responsibility. Furthermore, having students prepared to chair the meeting will serve as a reminder that this is their team, and that they are expected to drive its success. When considering this strategy, having a good understanding of your teams’ strengths and weaknesses will help to ensure that the right people end up contributing in the right areas.



#21. Choose Your Meeting Location Carefully

There are no set rules for choosing a good meeting location, but there are certainly a number of factors to consider. Will the selected location be conducive to discussion? Is there enough light? Is there too much noise? Can everyone fit comfortably in the space, with enough furniture (chairs, tables, etc.)? Is it a high-traffic area? Each of these questions (and the associated answers) will have a bearing on the effectiveness of your meeting. Having a set location that suits your needs as a leadership team will ensure that you get the most out of your meeting time. If you choose to change the location from time to time to provide a different perspective (having a meeting about an upcoming campus development project that involves walking around, for example, could be very effective), then it will stand out as something different and fresh.

#22. Hospitality – a Worthwhile Investment

This is an aspect of successful meetings that can be regularly overlooked, although it is not an easily measured factor. If there’s one thing that can endear your team to the meeting process, though, it’s the sense of care and consideration that is communicated through hospitality. No one needs a three-course meal arranged for every student leadership meeting, but some sort of food and drink can not only show appreciation for people’s time, it can also be a catalyst for discussion. Many of our most meaningful human activities happen around food, and it certainly helps to get people talking! Hospitality is sometimes an x-factor that takes a well-prepared meeting and transforms it into an effective, successful one.

#23. Don’t Forget! (The Last Minute Reminder)

It’s easy to forget a student leadership meeting, especially if you’re a student who is still growing and developing their organisational abilities! The meeting may well be in the same place at the same time every week, but sending out a quick reminder to students can be the difference between minimum or maximum attendance. It may only be a small investment of time, but it can certainly pay off, and ensure that the hard work of preparing a meeting doesn’t go to waste. It’s always better for a team to be sick of getting reminders than it is for them to turn around and insist ‘… but no one told me that it was on today!’

#24. Make Time for Games and Activities

Sometimes (and often for good reasons), meetings can end up feeling a little dull. When working with student leaders, it’s important to factor in a bit of time for fun. This could be a game or activity that is related to one of the topics at hand, or it could be completely unrelated and random. The best games are always the ones that cater to the personality of the group. Knowing your team will help you choose between ‘active’ games, ‘thinking’ games, and games that require some sort of competition. Games could be used at the beginning of a meeting to get people thinking and moving; in the middle to break up a long discussion section; or even at the end as a ‘reward’ for a job well done.


Chapter 3TIPS FOR MAKING STUDENTS LESS RELIANT ON YOU


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#25. Intentionally Replace YourselfThis one may seem quite obvious, but there is a big difference between having the intention to replace yourself and intentionally replacing yourself. Drawing up a plan that articulates each of your responsibilities within the team and also provides a process by which they can be delegated will give you a road map to follow. An obvious place to start might be the process of preparing and leading meetings. Working with a student (or students) to take over the chairing of meetings, as well as their planning and preparation can significantly diminish your involvement in that regular task. Being systematic about working through each of your contributions will allow you to focus on developing the team overall, rather than being overwhelmed by regular tasks.

#26. Have a Specific Plan for Each Individual

This tip involves getting to know your team members well, and developing an understanding as to how they can best contribute to the overall success of the team. Knowing how each student is wired, what they are passionate about, and where they sit in terms of creativity, structure, experience, etc. will allow you to make informed decisions and position each team member intentionally. In addition to helping them to be effective, a considered approach to this area will allow you to facilitate opportunities for growth – challenging individuals to move beyond their comfort zone, and to take on challenges and tasks that they may otherwise not have done.

#27. The Power of EncouragementEncouragement is one of the most powerful tools that any leader has. Encouragement means to ‘give courage’ or to ‘place courage within’ someone. When a person receives encouragement, they are more likely to believe in themselves, try new things, persevere, and end up with a better result in the end. Encouragement can take many forms, and different students will be affected more powerfully by different strategies. Sometimes public encouragement is a great approach, especially if it suits the personality of the individual, while at other times a quiet encouraging word is far more effective. Creating a broader culture of team encouragement is another area that can bear great fruit, and as students begin to believe in themselves, their abilities and their track record, they begin to rely less on supervising teachers for things that they are capable of achieving themselves.

Tips for Making Students Less Reliant on You

#28. Respond to Questions with a Question

This is an effective strategy in a variety of contexts, and student leadership teams are certainly a group that can benefit greatly from this approach. It can be tempting, especially when a particular task is causing time-pressure, to jump in and provide answers to all questions personally. There will, of course, be times when decisive and directive leadership is the necessary approach, but as a general rule – if you meet questions with questions, it will put the onus back on the individual or team where it belongs. A team that is used to having every question answered for them will never be as effective as one that is challenged to answer their own questions, because in the answering there will always be an opportunity for learning and growth. After a period of time, you may feel as though all you do is ask your team questions! This is a good sign, and likely means that the culture is changing and becoming more empowering, and less dependent on you.

#29. Schedule a Meeting without YouThis is something to test towards the beginning of your team’s tenure as leaders. Even is there isn’t a life-threatening emergency, choose to make yourself unavailable for a meeting once the team is up-and-running. Delegate all of the necessary tasks, and ensure that all of your expectations for the meeting are clear for the participants and key stakeholders. Once the meeting has been conducted in your absence, it can be beneficial to get some individual feedback from those charged with running the meeting, and then making a debrief the first agenda item for the following meeting, in order to hear some feedback from the rest of the team. While this strategy should probably be used sparingly, it can be very effective at providing an opportunity for student leaders to step into a role of being a leader within a team of peers. It also provides a precedent for you, should there ever be an emergency that actually prevents you from attending a meeting, that all parties will feel more comfortable knowing that they have previously been effective in your absence.


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#30. Students Can Send RemindersWe covered the sending of reminders in a previous tip – but why not get your student leaders to remind each other? This is another way to challenge them to take responsibility for their team, and to reinforce that each member is accountable to each other. You can guide your team as to the best ways that you have found to remind the team (morning notices, verbal reminder in person, email, etc.) and monitor their progress and effectiveness. If you have concerns about whether this strategy will work well for your team, then perhaps consider a complimentary approach, where student leaders begin sending reminders and other information alongside your ‘main’ reminder, with the goal of diminishing your involvement in this area over time.

#31. Encourage Students to Speak in Public

Some students take to public speaking quickly and easily, while for others it can be at the very top of their list of fears! Public speaking is certainly a polarising area for many people, but with a little encouragement, your students’ fears can begin to subside. There are a number of different approaches you can take to encourage your students to speak in public, and one of the easiest is to normalise it. Having your student leaders presenting on different areas within their regular meeting is a great start for those who may appreciate ‘cutting their teeth’ in a safe space. In addition to this, encourage your more confident speakers to present in larger groups, such as house meetings or full school assemblies. Not only does this help to make public speaking just another ‘part of the job’, but it also prevents you from becoming the default spokesperson for the group, and encourages your students to develop a sense of public responsibility as student leaders.

#32. Establish Boundaries of Authority and Permission

There can be unspoken questions within your student leadership team about the boundaries of authority and permission. While the idea of this may feel restrictive for students, especially during an ideas or approval phase of a project, it is important to establish these boundaries early, for the sake of all involved. They do not need to be a list of ‘don’ts’ though – there should be a balance between ‘don’ts’ (or ‘remember to…’ if you prefer) and ‘do’s’. Once again, this can be a great opportunity for empowerment and can serve as an excellent reminder of what students are allowed (and even encouraged) to do. Many things can be done without needing to check in with a teacher, and clear boundaries can help students discern between different areas of authority. Once your students have an understanding of what they can and can’t make autonomous decisions about, you can be less relied upon for smaller tasks, and can shift your focus to providing support in other areas.

#33. Design a FAQ Document – Especially for Term 1

This (FAQ = Frequently asked questions) is an idea that is often well received but rarely practiced. Most schools had a student leadership team last year, and will most likely have a team next year, but there often isn’t a document that is handed to the incoming student leaders (and even incoming staff members) that can begin to answer introductory questions. As you would already know, sometimes leading students can be a seemingly unending experience of answering the same 10-15 questions over and over again. Creating a centralised knowledge base with common questions and answers is a great way to save yourself from repetition, and can also be a great task for your current leaders to participate in when their own time is drawing to a close. Each year’s leaders can review and update the FAQ document, adding their own questions and answers based on their year’s experience.

Tips for Making Students Less Reliant on You


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#34. Templates and Checklists Help Everyone!

Good systems can solve problems and can also streamline tasks and processes. Templates and checklists can empower your student leaders to ‘lead themselves’, answering many questions before they need to ask for your input, and fostering a sense of consistency and identity within the team from project to project. Your responses to questions from your leaders may begin to sound like ‘What does the template say to do next?’ or ‘Is there anything else left on the checklist?’ – and this is a very good thing. Eventually, these questions won’t be asked anymore, and the templates and checklists have begun to do their job. There will always be plenty of room for creativity and spontaneity within events and activities, but your checklists can provide scaffolding that can free you from repetitive questions and the need to micro-manage each stage of a project.

#35. Contribute Only What You Need To

For a variety of reasons, teachers and other staff members can find themselves practically contributing too much to a student leadership team. There are times and circumstances, of course, when your contribution is vital and necessary for the success of the team and the individuals within it – but as a general rule ‘less is more’. One of the core goals of having a student leadership team is to build leaders, and empowering them to lead often requires a degree of removing yourself. An experienced staff member may be able to complete many tasks at a much higher level than their leaders, but in the interest of developing leaders, withholding your contribution can be the more effective strategy. Students will often gauge what’s required of them based on the contribution of others (remember being part of a school or university group project…?), so leaving space for students to step up is a great philosophy, and can bear great fruit in your team.

Chapter 4TIPS FOR ASSEMBLING THE IDEAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

Tips for Assembling the Ideal Student Leadership Team

#36. Encourage and Harness DiversityStudent leaders can often associate leadership with a specific personality type – often those at the more outspoken or dominant end of the spectrum. As a leader of young leaders, it’s important to validate and uphold different leadership attributes, and to challenge the assumptions of who ‘is and isn’t’ a leader. Harnessing diversity is an intentional approach to putting this idea into practice, and it can create a culture of contribution within your team that can include everyone, not just those who are extroverted or gregarious. Student leaders can then thrive, knowing that their personality and contribution are seen as valuable by their staff and fellow students, and can begin to identify as a ‘leader’ themselves. Alongside this, if different personality types and different skill-sets are intentionally welcomed when assembling your team, the potential for your team’s meaningful contribution increases side-by-side with your teams’ diversity.

#37. Have Some ‘Task-Focused’ Student Leaders

As a specific follow-on from the previous tip, this section is part one of two, and focuses on the task aspect of the ‘task/people’ leadership spectrum. Some of your leaders will naturally think of leadership in terms of a series of tasks to be completed. Events, activities and fundraisers can be conceptualised as a series of jobs – which is certainly an important mind-set and area of contribution to your leadership team! A task-focused approach may seem a little detached at times, with people just focusing on completing their ‘to-do’ list, but having these task-focused people on board will empower your team to be more effective, and will help everyone on the team to move from ideas to plans to actions.

#38. Have Some ‘People-Focused’ Student Leaders

On the other hand, there are student leaders who will naturally sit towards the ‘people’ end of the spectrum, and will conceptualise events and activities in experiential terms…focusing on the type of experiences they want to create, the type of feelings they would like people to have (such as enjoyment, enthusiasm, amazement) and focus on the individuals attending, rather than the overall numbers, for instance. While this may seem like a very nebulous and abstract approach to leadership, ‘people focused’ leaders can sometimes be more effective at creating experiences for others to participate in that are rich, meaningful and memorable – not just streamlined, practical and functional. Both (task-focused and people-focused) are important, and each approach balances and challenges the other.


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#39. Align Team Values with School Values

When beginning the selection process for your student leadership team, make sure you give the team a clear identity. This will ensure that the right candidates are attracted to volunteer their services, and will also ensure that the team sits securely within the values of the school that it serves. If your school has a vision or mission statement, or perhaps a set of values displayed in the administration area or on your website, this could be a great starting point for establishing the identity of your student leadership team. A question like ‘Now that I have read these values, what would they look like in a student leadership context?’ is a perfect place to start, and can help you to build a bridge between the unique contribution of your student leaders and the wider values and identity of your school community.

#40. Consider the Ceiling / Potential of Individuals

Students who are eligible or interested in becoming a student leader will no doubt be at various stages of their development and maturity, and will probably have had different leadership experiences throughout their life (positive and negative) that will inform their current perspective. The potential of an individual student, however, is not always clear and sometimes they may need to be given the opportunity to lead before their potential can be seen. A student with less experience could end up becoming a better leader than someone who is often chosen for such roles – and all they need is an opportunity to realise that potential. Practically, this process can include the consideration of a student’s extra-curricular activities, their influence at school, their leadership characteristics, and other factors that may indicate that a particular student is someone to consider as a future school leader.

#41. Enlist the InfluencersInfluence is a key attribute of any great leader, and enlisting the key influencers is always worth considering when assembling your student leadership team. With influential students as part of your team, the ability to advertise and promote can become far more powerful, which can in turn translate into increased attendance and participation at your various events and activities. Sometimes, however, students can be powerful influencers in a negative capacity, and are often overlooked for leadership roles as a result. Such students can be viewed as a calculated risk, though, and with the right opportunities and guidance, can end up becoming very successful leaders during and after their school years. A position on the leadership team may well be a significant catalyst for their growth and development, and bring along with it the added bonus of increasing the overall influence of your team.

#42. Find the Servants in the School

Similarly to the characteristic of influence, service is another key attribute of great leaders and can often be identified in potential student leaders. When assembling your leadership team, keep an eye out for students who are the helpers; the ones who go out of their way to make sure that others have what they need, and are making a contribution to the life of the school community with their time and with their talents. Advocating leadership that is focused on the service of others is certainly a key goal of GRIP Leadership, and is usually recognised as one of the ideal qualities of a student leader in any school. These students are not always the loudest or the most ‘public’, but they can certainly set a great culture within the team, and contribute substantially to its effectiveness and significance.

#43. Question: Are they Lead-Able?This is a key question! When bringing your team together, it’s extremely important to ask yourself whether they are lead-able. Lead-ability is primarily an attitude or mind set, and it says ‘I am prepared to listen to you and take direction from you.’ If your young leaders aren’t lead-able, it can set you up for a very long and frustrating year ahead, and in turn set them up for disappointment. Fortunately, this can be addressed for most students by articulating expectations at the beginning of their leadership journey, as well as looking at the behavioural track record to this point.



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#44. Articulate ‘the Ideal’What are some of the qualities that you would love to see in your student leaders? When you imagine a group of leaders, what characteristics might they have? If you can articulate the ideal, then you can begin to look for it. This tip is similar to ‘reverse engineering’ a student leader – starting at the finish line and then working backwards. These young leaders don’t necessarily need to display all the ideal characteristics at the beginning – the journey of being a student leader can cultivate potential attributes into actual attributes. If you know what you’re working towards, however, then the team that you journey with can become a little easier to select.

#45. Strive for Excellence, Not Perfection

When it’s time to start adding names to your list of potential student leaders, it is important to set a realistic bar. The students being considered for leadership roles will have a number of different expectations placed upon them, and hopefully no one (including the students themselves) will be expecting perfection! It is reasonable, however, to look for students who consistently strive for excellence – which is the characteristic of being ‘above average’ or ‘unusually good’ – in other words, giving their best in all areas. This is a quality that allows for mistakes and learning, while also holding oneself to a high personal standard. This quality can also have a great influence on other members of the group, and help to develop excellence as a core value of your team.

#46. Look beyond the ‘Usual Suspects’ for Leadership Roles

Some students are (metaphorically) already on a leadership list before anyone puts pen to paper - the usual suspects; those students who excel academically or who always put their hand up for extra responsibilities. These students are great to have and are usually an asset to your team, but when assembling your leadership team, don’t forget to look beyond this group of students to students who may be considered less often. These might be students who have had behavioural or academic challenges, but who show potential if given the right opportunity. This approach to building your team values the group as a ‘catalyst for change’, and can yield amazing results in the lives of these students. Naturally, you can’t have a student leadership ‘team’ that includes everyone (although some schools do successfully utilise an approach that includes an entire senior year group), but looking in unlikely places can sometimes bring about amazing results.

#47. Be Creative in Vetting ApplicantsThere is a story told (which you may have heard) about a coach who was looking to appoint next year’s team captain. He gathered his team together and gave each of them a seed, promising them that whoever planted and looked after their particular seed the best would be chosen as next year’s captain. One student (we’ll call him Jim) hurried home and planted the seed in a pot. He watered and fertilised it, and cared for it in every possible way – but nothing grew. Jim was very disappointed, and knew that he was certainly not going to be selected as captain – he may not even be allowed to stay on the team! The time came for the team members to bring in their plants to show the coach, and there was such a variety of strong, healthy, colourful plants to behold. Jim was very impressed by what he saw, and was ashamed that all he had was a seed in some soil. The coach, however, seeing Jim’s pot, walked straight over and declared him the new captain! While the rest of the team was coming to terms with this bizarre choice, the coach quietly explained to everyone; ‘the seeds that I gave you were boiled seeds, and not one of them was capable of growing into a plant. Jim is the only person who displayed integrity and completed the assignment as requested. He is your new captain.’

In order to help you with your selection process, don’t be afraid to be creative in your application process – sometimes it doesn’t even need to look like an application, but can still provide very useful insights for you.

#48. Play ‘Devil’s Advocate…’This tip may not sound terribly kind, but it is an important step when deciding between potential leadership candidates. Weighing up weaknesses or other reasons why someone might not be a good candidate is good stewardship of the responsibility given to you as the coordinator, and can also help identify areas where students can be helped or pastorally cared for via other avenues. Not everyone will necessarily fit into your existing student leadership structure, and arguing against your initial choices a little bit will either help to reinforce them, or will expose some additional student growth and development that may need to take place.



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#49. Gather Diverse Perspectives on Your Potential Leaders

Make sure that when it’s time to assemble your leadership team that there are various opinions available to you. Other members of the school community will bring different perspectives, and can help you to remove personality, relational context (e.g. being a past teacher of a particular student) and allow each candidate to stand on their merits. Each staff member that you involve will see things a little differently, and can bring insights and reflections that add depth to your considerations. Academic staff, members of the executive…anyone who isn’t personally invested in the selection of a particular student could be a good candidate for this type of contribution. Having various voices also insulates us from our own limitations and shortcomings as leaders, preventing us from making choices based on personality or personal preference.

Chapter 5TIPS FOR HELPING STUDENTSRUN EVENTS

#50. Invite a Specialist Guest Speaker

At the beginning of your event planning, it can be very helpful to invite a special guest to spend some time with your leadership team. Someone who has done something in a related area would be ideal, or someone who has experience in running events, in order to provide some wisdom, advice, and a different ‘voice’ (which can sometimes make a big difference). This strategy can be particularly effective when running a fundraising event on behalf of a particular charity organisation, as it gives you the perfect opportunity to bring a representative from the relevant organisation to explain more about the mission and goals of the charity, which can in turn influence the investment of your leaders in their project, as well as empowering them to pass on that information to other students before and during the fundraising event.

#51. Don’t Try to Reinvent the Wheel

All successful events follow a fairly similar basic pattern: generation of ideas, preparation and planning, advertising, running the event, review. Student leaders can come up with some amazing ideas, but can sometimes expend unnecessary energy trying to figure out how to run an event from scratch. If you can help your students by providing a road map of sorts, they can focus on filling in the relevant details and putting in the necessary work to complete each task rather than trying to invent tasks from scratch. Providing this type of event framework can save your team hours of unnecessary work, and get them focused on making their event the best that it can be. GRIP Leadership has prepared these kinds of resources, which are available on our website.

#52. Start (Really) Early…Student leaders with little or no experience running events may think that you can begin planning a large event a week or two beforehand and expect everyone to turn up and participate…it may sound ridiculous when you read it, but you’d be amazed how often this is the experience of staff who work with student leaders. Getting projects started early is an absolute secret of success, and an intentional staff member can make sure that this secret is shared – loudly and repeatedly – with their team. Starting event preparation months in advance will allow for thinking time, mistakes, creativity, advertising, and everything else that goes into making events successful. Starting early will also help to reduce the stress that goes along with working in a team to plan and present events.

Tips for Helping Students Run Events

#53. Checklists for Organisation (and as a Teaching Tool!)

Checklists have been mentioned in a previous chapter, but in this tip we are focused specifically on an event checklist. An event checklist can speed up you team’s preparation time, as it can eliminate unnecessary tasks and streamline the available time to ensure that it is used as efficiently as possible. If you’d like to take it a step further, then you (and your team) can prepare checklists for each phase of the event – the planning, preparation, advertising, running and review. While this will be a significant investment of time in its own right, it is certainly a wise investment, and having these checklists each time you run events will save you countless hours and multiple meetings trying to get everyone on the same page.

#54. Gantt Charts – When They’re Helpful

A Gantt chart is basically an illustrated project schedule, and provides an overview of a project as a whole, and when certain tasks need to be completed by in order for other ‘dependant’ tasks to begin. This may all sound too advanced for a student leadership team to be using, but they are incredibly common in professional circles. Having some experience with Gantt charts will not only help students plan school events, it can be a great experience for your young leaders to have when moving forward in later phases of life. You can tailor the complexity of the Gantt chart to suit the age and ability of your team – so you could have a few bars with key dates for beginners or younger students, right up to a more complex and detailed overview for older or more experienced students. The other benefit of Gantt charting is that students are regularly reminded of the role that their tasks play in the broader team, and that each team member is relying on others to complete their tasks. A quick search online will provide plenty of examples for preparing a Gantt chart.


#55. Ask Your Student Leaders Lots of Questions

Quizzing your student leaders will challenge their thinking, and will set them up to run a more successful event. One particularly effective strategy is to role-play, with yourself as part of the target market. You could ask questions like ‘what do you want me to do in response to this advertising? Who should I contact with questions or concerns? What time should I show up? How do I find out more information?’ These types of questions will encourage your students to put themselves in others’ shoes, and really think through the necessary steps for running a successful event.

#56. Regularly Return to the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ Questions

Questions based around ‘what’ and ‘why’ are the questions that drive meaning and substance for people. Teaching your student leaders to ask these questions often will encourage them to keep the most important aspects of their event at the center – namely the people, the intended effect or legacy, and the cause or motivation behind running it. Asking your students to stop and recall why they are working hard can provide additional stamina and can also fine-tune their focus, as well as providing a gauge by which decisions and ideas can be measured. These questions become a central point around which your team can build successful and significant events.

#57. Advertising / Marketing Hints and Tips

At times, the task list for student leaders can become quite consuming, and it can be difficult to research new or innovative strategies for areas like advertising and marketing. As a leader of leaders, try to factor in some time for research of your own, so that your student leaders can be inspired by new ideas and strategies for connecting with their fellow students and other members of the school community. Marketing hints and tips are available all over the internet, and can usually be fairly easily tailored to suit the needs and objectives of a student leadership team. Spending some time on this area personally can also help your students when it comes time to navigating ‘school policy’ related areas, such as social media use.


#58. Do Only What You Need to … (PART 1 of 2)

Lao Tzu famously said: “When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘we did it ourselves’.”

One of the many goals of student leaders is empowerment, and that can perhaps be best summarised in the sentence ‘You can do it!’ Now, at different times, you may need to add weight to different parts of that sentence:• YOU can do it!• You CAN do it!• DO IT!!!!

There can often be a need to step back from tasks yourself in order for your leaders to have space and permission to engage with these tasks in a hands-on way. This can sometimes get a little bit messy in the early stages of transition, but with some intentional support and lots of ‘you can do it!’ reminders, you’ll give them the best chance to grow and develop.

#59. Definitely Do What You Need To! (PART 2 of 2)

As a companion thought to the previous tip – there will usually be a certain type of task that is either best left to a staff member, or can only be done by a staff member. Conversations with a fellow staff member in preparation for an event, for instance, can sometimes be best conducted by you. This can be especially necessary if the conversation consists of small questions, ‘teacher jargon’, or sensitive information. Another area might involve supervision and duty of care, which students will be unable to provide for themselves. Whether it’s signing forms, meeting with the principal about certain details, communicating with parents…there are certain things that you’ll need to do that will enable your students to do what they can. If these are prioritised, it will make other tasks that are able to be delegated that much clearer.


#60. M.A.D. Goal Setting – a Simple and Effective System

GRIP Leadership has designed a dedicated resource that explores this idea and its place in running a successful event – but by way of introduction and overview:

M.A.D. goal setting is an acronym that consists of three key aspects of successful goal setting – making sure goals are Measurable, Achievable and Desirable. Once your student’s goals satisfy this criteria, you can move a step closer to running a successful event. From time to time, leadership teams will be organisationally ready to proceed with an event, but not have interrogated their idea or goal sufficiently, and so end up efficiently staging a very poor event – well organised perhaps, but ultimately ineffective. Using the M.A.D goal setting acronym can support the success of your student leaders’ events by giving them a proven checklist against which their ideas can be measured.

#61. Have Contingency Plans (‘What If…’)

Great events are robust events – meaning they can withstand changes or unforeseen circumstances. One of the tasks of people working with student leaders it to help by ‘foreseeing’ some of these unforeseen circumstances, and doing so by asking a series of ‘what if’ questions. What if it rains? What if students don’t read the newsletter? What if students show up but are a bit nervous to get involved – how will you respond? These types of questions can be very helpful, and can insulate your students’ events by testing them before they are actually tested in real life. As a general rule, try to avoid negative questioning (What if no one comes? What if all your hard work amounts to nothing? What if no one likes your ideas?). The key is to ask questions that can actually be answered proactively, engaging your students mentally and challenging their process and ideas, in order to end up with a stronger and more robust event.



#62. Deal with Money and Budget Early

Some teams are very good in this regard, while others seem to avoid dealing with it until the last possible minute. Having a budget is a reality of managing anything, and that certainly holds true for student leadership events. You may discover that your budget for a particular event is zero, but this is usually the exception rather than the rule. Money for advertising materials, resources, meeting minutes – it all comes from somewhere, and it can be a good learning experience for students to see some of these behind the scenes costs. Better still, allocate a fixed budget to each event, and make it a goal of your leadership team to come in on or under budget. Not only will this provide a tangible measurement for reviewing the event’s success later, but it will also teach a valuable skill that is vital for other areas of life.

#63. Teach Your Students to Delegate with Practical Skills and Modelling

Modelling is a recurring theme in this resource, and with good reason. Delegation is another important skill for leaders to develop, and seeing it done first-hand is a great way for your students to learn. When it’s time to delegate tasks to your leaders, use it as a teaching opportunity. If you are preparing a printed task delegation outline (a basic table containing task name, details, and deadlines), consider annotating it and using it as a reference. You could save such a delegation outline as a series of slides, and talk through them as part of a short presentation on delegation. The specific elements of delegation (desired outcome, available resources, specific guidelines or context, accountability…or for a simpler format, consider using ‘Talk, Tools, Terms and Trust) can form part of your delegation outline and annotation, and you can return to these slides as required throughout the year.

Chapter 6TIPS FOR TRAINING AND DEVELOPING STUDENT LEADERS

#64. Don’t Be the Only Voice Shaping Your Leaders

The training and development of your leaders is a big responsibility, and even though it’s important to have at least one staff member acting as the ‘point leader’, you can create a diverse range of learning opportunities by ensuring that there are other voices shaping your leaders. It can be difficult to listen to the same person over long periods of time, and eventually the team can become a little less receptive to good, formative teaching. Strategies to combat this may include having another teacher in an assistant role, offering a different voice and perspective; videos and other resources with different presenters, and even inviting the principal to contribute in order to place the contribution of your student leaders within the wider context of the school community.

#65. MMA – the Mixed Media Advantage

Information delivery has changed so much in the last few decades, and an intentional staff member can certainly use this to their advantage when developing their student leadership team. The advantage of using mixed media is that it captures different students and appeals to different learning styles. Videos, audio presentations, posters, and slideshows – all of these types of media can make a connection with your team to ensure that they are as engaged as possible in the learning process. Asking yourself the question ‘how can I best communicate this theme/point/message?’ can open a door to a much broader and effective strategy to develop your student leaders.

Tips for Training and Developing Student Leaders

#66. The Principle of ‘Show, Don’t Tell’

When trying to develop your team, there may be times when a particular focus area or characteristic needs attention, or it becomes clear that a certain skill needs focus or further development. Make sure that your students don’t just hear about it (e.g. ‘Today we’re going to talk about X’) – engage the show don’t tell principle. This is an old storytelling approach that encourages authors not to have long explanatory sections of monologue/dialogue, but rather to create a diverse range of experiential scenes or circumstances, thereby allowing the audience to piece together the important ideas and themes for themselves. Media again can be really effective here, as well as roles plays, testimonies, and varied locations.

#67. Plan Some Field TripsSometimes student leaders will come up with the same ideas and suggestions when the time comes to contribute, or will keep approaching challenges or opportunities in the same way each time. Planning some field trips will introduce a change of scenery, and will also create shared experiences that teams can draw up when it comes time for the next brainstorming session or leadership meeting. Field trips into the wider community, or to visit other schools that may approach student leadership differently – perhaps even providing opportunities to collaborate with other leaders on events or projects – each of these aspects can strengthen and build your team, challenging stale thinking and broadening their perspective. When you look ahead in your student leadership calendar for the upcoming term or semester, it may become apparent that there are one or two projects that would benefit greatly in the planning stages from an intentional field trip.

#68. Make Sure Leaders See Other Leaders in Action

Great leaders emulate great leaders, and ensuring that your team is exposed to many and varied examples of quality leadership is an excellent team building strategy. When planning your approach in this area, try to include a diverse range of leaders and leadership contexts. For example, see if you can integrate leaders from different societal sectors – education, business, public, not-for-profit, etc. – as well as a good balance of male and female leaders; older and younger leaders, etc. Different examples will appeal to different students, and with enough options to place before your team, you can make an intentional and substantial investment in the development of your student leaders.


#69. Make Leadership Time Special (and Different to ‘School Work’)

A student leadership team that is functioning effectively shouldn’t feel like another class that students need to attend, but rather should have its own identity and context. There will of course be tasks to complete and things to learn, similar to classwork, but the method and delivery can be vastly different to the subjects that students engage in at other times. Creativity is a key strategy here, and ensuring that you take a step back and ask ‘if I were a student, would I enjoy being part of this team?’ Making sure that food, games, activities and other fun is interspersed with the business side of things is often a fruitful approach, as well as ensuring that each student’s contribution is recognised and appreciated, will go a long way to establishing their student leadership time as ‘different’ and a bit special.

#70. Create a Student Leadership Manual

There is an old saying: ‘If you want to learn something well, start teaching it.’ This idea can be applied to your student leadership team – often with excellent results. Decide early in the year that your team will be responsible for setting up next year’s leaders to learn and succeed, and to carry on with the work of previous and current leadership teams. Creating a student leadership manual is a great way to reinforce the concepts and characteristics that are being developed in your current team, as well as providing another ‘service’ opportunity for your leaders. They will usually not see the fruit of this work, but once established, it can become an on-going project for each year’s students to accept and further develop. By taking the time to prepare the next group of student leaders, they are participating in leaving a measurable and valuable legacy.


#71. Work On the Team, Not Just In the Team

This strategy can be an ongoing challenge for staff members – especially those who are high-level ‘do-ers’. There will always be a plethora of tasks and contributions that you can make within the team, and an active student leadership team often feels like a full-time job in its own right! Taking a step back and delegating tasks to your leaders will allow you some space to work on the team, rather than just in it. Regularly taking stock of your team’s health and development by asking ‘How are they going? How are their stress levels currently? How effective are we at the moment?’ will provide you with avenues to engage with the team in meaningful ways, and will create a pattern of investment and development, to compliment the necessary activity and action.

#72. Start Your Year with the End in Mind

When creating a development strategy for your student leadership team, it can be helpful to have a list of goals to aim for. Certain topics that you would like to have covered by the end of the year, for example, or formative experiences that you intend to schedule will enable you to work backwards, building a training program around clearly articulated objectives. Additionally, significant events or activities that you know your leaders will want to achieve will be that much easier to prepare when they are held in mind from an early stage in the year. If you can spend some time going through each of the areas of your student leadership model, and articulating the ‘wins’ for each, the remainder of the year becomes less of a guessing game, and more of a joining the dots.


#73. Theory-Based Training vs. Practical Training

Learning-by-thinking and learning-by-doing may be a somewhat over-simplified dichotomy, but this type of delineation can be useful when thinking about your training approach with your student leaders. Some students will much prefer learning on the job, and will absorb principles and practices by actively engaging in them – while other students will appreciate hearing and thinking about the theory first, and then putting it into practice after that. Preparing your student leaders to experience both approaches can help to ensure an inclusive and beneficial learning environment. Leadership theories in presentations and videos can set a great groundwork for new thinking and acting, while application and action can provide practical expressions.

#74. Catering to Different Learning Styles

Following on from the previous tip, it is always important to apply what you know about how students learn to your student leadership team and their training. Because students will absorb and filter information in different ways, you can maximise their development by intentionally providing various learning experiences for them to engage in. Ensuring that you have enough visual, physical, verbal, aural, and other learning approaches in your training will help to ensure that less of your leaders fall through the cracks, and you can effectively advance your team together as a cohort, tackling each new idea and skills from a variety of learning angles.

#75. Building Your Leadership LibraryInvesting in a leadership library is something that pays dividends year after year. Having a collection of good books, videos, audio presentations, templates, articles and worksheets, etc. will ensure that the wisdom that is obtained as the year progresses is integrated into future student leadership teams and structures. There will no doubt be times when a staff member’s preparation for a particular meeting or project is less than they might like, and at these times having a broad and well stocked resource library to reach for can help to ensure consistent and high-quality development for your team, whether you have ample preparation time or not.


#76. Enlisting the Help of Past Student Leaders

This strategy, once implemented, can be one of the highlights of your students’ leadership year. Having a forum for past students to share their wisdom and experiences, train current leaders, and generally contribute to the legacy of the current leaders is a wonderful way to ensure that the idea of student leadership stretches forward and back in time, beyond the current tenure of this year’s team. Past student leaders can run sessions, come in as a guest to run a leadership meeting (a great example for modelling), or to be a guest speaker on any number of student leadership related topics. Even former student leaders who have been out of school for many years can return and make a significant contribution, by illustrating the application of the skills and values learned during their time as a student leader into their next stage of life.

#77. Mentoring: An Under-Utilised Leadership Strategy

Mentoring is an area that many student leadership teams fail to seriously integrate into their training strategy. The effectiveness of mentoring lies in the professional and personal relationship that it fosters – intentional time spent between someone with experience and someone who is still developing on the journey. There are many ways to structure such a program, but by way of preparation and facilitation, consider approaching a number of other staff members and asking if they would be willing to dedicate 15 minutes each fortnight to a structured conversation with one of your leaders – checking in and reinforcing the themes and values of the team, while also being a safe place to discuss concerns and ask broader leadership questions.


#78. Balancing Leadership Skills with Leadership Characteristics and Values

Balancing the training content between ‘what a leader is’ and ‘what a leader does’ can present quite a challenge, and different staff members may put a greater emphasis on one over the other, depending on their personal preference, perspective, or their own experiences. ‘What a leader does’, however, can always be traced back to ‘Who a leader is’, and if you build your framework around this idea, then your student leaders will always have answers when asking why they have to set out chairs, make lists, clean things up, write proposals, or complete any of the other ‘less glamorous’ tasks that are asked of a student leader. Ensure that your leadership development strategy has plenty of both types of training, to ensure a balanced understanding of good leaders (GRIP Leadership has designed a resource called ‘40 Leadership Lessons in 40 Weeks’, that provides a video and worksheet library of 20 leadership characteristics, along with 20 practical skills for student leaders. You can learn more about this resource on our website).


Chapter 7TIPS FOR raising the profile of student leadership in your school

#79. ‘The Student Leadership Team Presents…’

Often, student leaders make various contributions around the school – but from the perspective of the general school population, all they see is ‘someone’ doing ‘something’. You can intentionally develop the identity and profile of your student leadership team by including a by-line in notices, or ensuring that events and activities are clearly ‘presented by your student leadership team’. Such public acknowledgement will help to raise the profile of your team, ensuring that their contribution to the school is noticed and appreciated, and will also help to generate additional responsibility…whenever we are required to put our name on something, it can have a positive effect on the quality of that product or endeavour!

#80. Student Leaders as the Public Voice of the Team

When working towards raising the profile of your student leadership team, an effective strategy can be to make sure that they are seen and heard regularly. Whenever there are announcements to be made, or any time that the school needs a representative at a community or interschool event – consider sending one or more of your student leaders along. There will, of course, be times when a staff member is the appropriate choice, but if student leaders are chosen for public tasks whenever possible, it will serve to underline that they are not merely a team completing tasks, but are in fact leaders in their own right, representing their school and taking responsibility for it whenever they can.


#81. Publish Student Leader ProfilesStudents can journey through junior or senior school, and still not know much about many of their fellow students. To help raise the profile of your student leaders, and to make their job of leading their peers marginally easier, consider developing ‘leader profiles’ that are presented around the school. It could be a series of posters that are displayed on the school notice board, outlining the names, interests, and background of each of your leaders – or even something as simple as your leaders introducing themselves and including an interesting fact or two each time they are called upon to deliver notices or make a presentation at a school or house assembly. It can be a challenge for your leaders to get to know everyone in the school, but you can easily raise the profile and effectiveness of your leadership team by ensuring that the school community knows something about each of them.

#82. Intentionally Design Some Leadership Team Contributions That Are ‘Popular’ with Peers

This tip may sound a little odd – but sometimes students who hold leadership positions can feel a bit ostracised by their peers. Intentionally designing a popular event or two early on in their tenure can help to insulate more sensitive students against this, and can build some esteem and support for your student leadership team among their peers. Events built around films, food or fun are usually a great places to start, and more specific ideas can be gathered by having your leaders run a survey in the first few weeks to see what types of activities the wider student cohort might enjoy.

Tips for Raising the Profile of Student Leadership in Your School

#83. Make a Few Leadership Benefits Visible to All

From the outside, sometimes student leadership positions can appear to be all hard work. Extra meetings, additional responsibilities, coming in early and staying late… it’s no wonder why some students look sideways at potential involvement. If a staff member is intentional about publicising a few of the benefits of being part of the leadership team, it can go a long way to raising the profile (and appeal) of student leadership at your school. Publicising a leadership camp or conference, providing a summary of a field trip at the next assembly, having an end-of-year leadership dinner to celebrate…there are a host of ways to make some of the benefits of being part of the team visible to the wider school community.

#84. Raise the Student Leadership Profile in the Wider Community

As well as raising the profile of student leadership within the school community, schools should consider raising the profile of their leaders within the wider community. Student leaders can represent the school in powerful ways, and can certainly be ambassadors for the values and attributes of a school. Community events, fundraisers, and annual events afford you the opportunity to expose your team to aspects of leadership that are different to those normally available on campus. Student leaders can also partner with community organisations to run events, which can have a reciprocal benefit of taking your leaders out of their school environment, as well as adding breadth to their influence and impact.


#85. Educate the Masses – e.g. What is Student Leadership?

Questions like, ‘what is a student leader? Why do we have student leaders at our school? What does the school expect of our student leaders?’ can create awareness and momentum for your leadership team, and can raise their profile within the wider school community. Having an assembly section dedicated to student leadership before their tenure begins can help to define their role, and allow the entire school to better appreciate the roles and responsibilities of their leaders, as well as the type of contributions that they will make to the life of the school. You could also use this as an opportunity to highlight the work and legacy of past leadership teams, as well as introducing some of the coming year’s leaders to members of the student cohort that may not be familiar with them.

#86. Facilitate a Public Endorsement While you’re thinking about the type of announcement that you’d like to make, consider also who your spokesperson could be. Public announcements can be a wonderful opportunity to invite a principal, deputy, or head of house to add their public support and encouragement to your leadership team. This can have a number of benefits, not least of which that it reminds the school community that the student leadership team are not a peripheral group, but rather are part of the leadership structure of the school. The senior leaders of the staff community can add weight to the position and contribution of the student leadership team by helping people to understand the different levels of leadership within the school, and the valuable contribution that the student leadership team makes to that overall picture.

#87. Always Gather Video Footage and Other Content

This is an investment tip, and one that can pay handsome dividends throughout the year. There are so many benefits to having quality video footage, photos, and audio recordings of your student leaders and their events. Among other benefits, quality media can make the creation of promotional material and advertising much easier. Have an external hard drive divided up into video, still photos and audio, and then within those folders identify different events that your student leaders run throughout the year. Not only will this help their future promotion, but it’s also something that can be handed on to next year’s leadership team as a resource for them to use – straight from day one. This also provides additional opportunities for your leaders to contribute to events in the role of gathering footage and photos.


#88. Make it Desirable to Join the Team!

Among the various responsibilities of being a student leader, the role must actually be something that students will enjoy being part of. When advertising the opportunity to be part of the student leadership team, ensure that the fun and enjoyable aspects are as prominent as the roles and responsibilities, to ensure that your prospective student leaders get a balanced view of what the position entails. Once your leaders are in place and their tasks are underway, ensure that other students can see that being a leader is a great opportunity, and along with the responsibilities, there is a lot of enjoyment as well. This can be a great investment in the future of your leadership team too, as younger students notice and can be more open to involvement when their time comes.

#89. Choose Some ‘Regular Activities’ for the Team to Be Seen

Regular activities are a great way to raise the profile of your student leadership team, as their consistency allows the wider school community to become more familiar with your team members, as well as seeing their contribution to the school in action. These activities ensure that your team is visible, and will also help to balance out the behind-the-scenes contributions that no one sees. Lunchtime activities, before and after school events – weekly stalls or games… the regular activities could take any shape of form, with the intention of ensuring that the school community sees the team making positive and consistent contributions.

#90. Meeting the Needs of Others > Activism and Busyness

This tip is one that can be used as a filter for all student leadership activities. At most schools, there is no shortage of tasks that could be completed by the team. Keeping your team busy with activity is not usually the greatest challenge of a staff leader; but you can assess the value of these activities by asking whether (and how) they meet the needs of others. This need not be a behind-the-scenes question either…it can be something that becomes a semi-regular review item at meetings, and can even be used to focus and streamline activities that are very busy, but seem to lack connection with the values and purpose of the leadership team and the school overall.


#91. Teach the Value of IntegrityNothing lowers the profile of a student leadership team faster than a loss of integrity. From time to time, leaders make mistakes or poor choices, and these errors of judgement are part and parcel of working with people – especially younger people who are still learning about decisions, responsibility, and consequences. Ensuring that the values of your team are articulated clearly, early, and often will help to reinforce the type of behaviour that is expected of your leaders throughout their time in the role. Integrity is a key value of all leaders, and when it is deliberately held in high regard by a leadership team, a student cohort notices that their leaders are people who ‘walk the talk’, and who are leading the way with their actions, and not just with their words.

#92. Advocate and Display Excellence (Celebrate Success)

This is an area that can be easily forgotten in the midst of the busyness of student leadership. Celebration should not be overlooked, however, as it is a wonderful way to encourage your team whilst raising their profile in the school community. Excellence can take many forms in the life of a student, and intentional staff can look for and celebrate excellence and success in creative ways. When a student represents the school well, or achieves excellence in an academic, sporting, musical or other area, publicly acknowledging it can do wonders for them. In addition to publicly celebrating the success of your leaders, you can make your student leaders the custodians of celebration within the student cohort, and encourage them to make a fuss over the success of others (which is a wonderful leadership quality in its own right).


Chapter 8TIPS FOR involving many students in leadership


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#93. Make It Meaningful (Answer the ‘Why’ Question)

Certain projects or activities may be attractive to different student leaders, and sometimes ideas can appeal only to one section of the school community. If you ensure that your student leadership events are meaningful, then it can provide the school with reasons to participate, and it can throw open the doors for far more students to participate in some sort of leadership role. Once you address the question of why a particular event or activity is running, then you can move beyond people’s surface preferences and into a place where different personalities can gather around a common goal or purpose.

#94. Intentionally Cater for Diversity (Skills and Interests)

When planning student leadership events, it can sometimes be easier to create experiences based on a similar theme, as it can streamline the preparation process and make decisions much clearer. This can, however, leave you with a smaller group of students to whom this approach appeals, and can exclude other students with less ‘mainstream’ interests, gifts, and talents. Reviewing the composition of your team and looking for events that encourage their contribution can be a great way of involving new leaders, and ensuring that those who are close to the ‘fringe’ are given a chance to be part of the team in a meaningful way. Naturally, getting to know the strengths, interests, and passions of your students is the most reliable way to ensure that you involve as many students as possible in ways that are meaningful for them.

Tips for Involving Many Students in Leadership

#95. Re-Define Leadership beyond Position

The connection between a leadership badge and a leadership position is predictably strong in the mind of many students, and this is something that can present a challenge for staff who are working to develop a culture of leadership at their school. Different schools combat this thinking in different ways…some declare that all of their senior students are considered to be leaders, or even extend this idea across the entire school. Others will create opportunities for students to make a leadership contribution without being part of the team, and still others create a host of leadership badges to be given to any student that represents the school or assists at an event. Underpinning all of these practical strategies is the idea that true leadership is founded on a series of qualities, characteristics and actions, rather than in a badge or a position.

#96. Teamwork > Individuals Completing Tasks

Teaching the value and practice of teamwork is an ideal that every student leadership team should work towards. Students, of course, will need to balance their contributions to the leadership team between individually getting things done and contributing as part of a broader team, but the skill of teamwork can be somewhat illusive. Once tasks and roles are allocated, it can be tempting for everyone to ‘go to their corners’ and work away by themselves. The valuable skill of teamwork is something that doesn’t always develop naturally, and can require some very intentional planning and action on the part of the supervising staff member(s). Regular meetings can be a big help here, and structuring task completion in pairs or small groups when writing the action list can ensure that students gain experience in working as part of a team, rather than as a group of individuals.


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#97. Strive for Less Workload per Person – Balanced Responsibilities

There may be some students who have already shown that they have a higher capacity than others, and are able to take on a higher level or responsibility than their peers. This seems like an asset, and it shouldn’t necessarily be subverted, but such students can prevent others from having opportunities. Take a step back during the allocation of tasks and roles and ensure that students don’t take on too much. It can prevent these particular students from burn out, whilst also making it possible for more students to be involved overall.

#98. Watch Out for Those Who Self-Exclude

Some students may think that leadership is not for them. They may not see anything in common between themselves and other potential or current leaders, or they may feel as though past mistakes exclude them from being part of the team. Whatever their motivation may be, students can self exclude, and it can leave you with a smaller pool to draw on. Students’ reasons for self-excluding can vary greatly, but at their core they all connect back to a sense of student leadership ‘not being for them’. You can encourage these students to reconsider by providing examples of great student leaders (consider using former students or prominent examples from history) who did not necessarily ‘fit the mould’ – demonstrating that leadership is not one-size-fits-all, but rather a natural thing that anyone and everyone can participate in.

#99. Design Some School-Wide Initiatives

It’s important that the student cohort sees student leadership as something that is open to all, regardless of whether there is an elected team at your school or not. One of the easiest ways to foster this understanding is to develop a series of community initiatives that require the involvement of many student representatives. Activities that involve making a contribution to the wider community – whether that be visiting nursing homes, cleaning up public spaces, or participating in a charity fundraiser can go a long way towards involving a wider group of students in the culture of leadership at your school. Build a network of connections to community organisations in your area, and investigate different local, state-wide and national initiatives that your school can contribute to.

#100. Community Action Sends a Great Message

Following on from the previous tip, community action sends a great message to the wider community. A school’s mission statement can talk about ‘raising young leaders’, for example, and it can be plastered around the school and in various official documents, but community action ensures that this core value is witnessed practically. The student leadership approach of a school can make a significant contribution to the reputation of the school in the wider community, and can facilitate stronger networks and partnerships that benefit all parties. When other students (and staff for that matter) see that the contribution of the student leaders exceeds the boundaries of the school campus, it can be a very motivating and inviting experience, and they may be motivated to get involved themselves!

Tips for Involving Many Students in Leadership


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#101. The Pay-It-Forward Model (e.g. Peer Support)

The pay-it-forward model is a simple yet powerful strategy for increasing the leadership action of your students. The concept of paying something forward is not new, but when practiced throughout a school community it can create a ripple effect of leadership actions, as students are ‘obliged’ (in the best possible way) to pass on the good deeds or acts that have been done to them. Assembly announcements, regular updates, class or year level activities – there are countless ways of putting this very simple idea into practice – and each time a student takes what they have been given and pays it forward in the service of others.

OTHER TITLES BY GRIP LEADERSHIP

10 Ways to Best Support Your Student LeadersThis book unpacks 10 of the best strategies that we have seen implemented by teachers who oversee successful student leadership groups. A perfect resource for teachers new to the role of working with student leaders.

101 Event Ideas for Student LeadersThis book contains 101 fantastic ideas to help student leaders make a significant contribution to your school and the broader community. Chapters includes events based on sporting, creative, environmental, cultural and charity ideas.

101 Opportunities for Students to LeadThis book provides 101 ideas to help you discover new opportunities for students to lead at your school. Chapters include opportunities for students to serve teachers, students, fellow leaders, the wider community and the school more broadly.

101 Qualities of a Student LeaderThis book is a new release in our very popular 101 series and is designed to expand the thinking that many students have in regards to the typical qualities of a leader. Reflecting on the many qualities in this book will enable current leaders to focus on the qualities they bring to their role and also help prospective leaders prepare for future opportunities.

101 Team Building Activities for Student LeadersThis book gives you 101 great team building activities and guides you through how to complete each and every one of them. Chapters include activities based on creativity, critical thinking, sports and various races.

Discover a whole new list of strategies and ideas for supporting student leaders.

How many years did you spend studying to receive your teaching qualification? How many of these units were directly related to the role of working with student leaders? Most teachers who have worked with student leaders have had to develop their own models, strategies, and processes. This book captures 101 of the tips that have been shared with us by a variety of experienced teachers. Each chapter contains ideas that will save you time, increase your effectiveness and unlock new possibilities in the students you work with.

About GRIP LeadershipGRIP Leadership specialises in making leadership training practical and relevant to a school context. Our range of ‘easy to use’ resources is continually expanded to complement the GRIP Student Leadership Conference, attended by thousands of students each year.

www.gripleadership.com

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