Leadership
Building confident leaders
Lauriston supports girls to engage fully in life.
The result of a Lauriston education is a well-rounded, confident and capable girl who has the depth of character only a willingness to try new things can create.
Lauriston helps build this strength from the inside out. We encourage students to cultivate their curiosity, explore new ways of doing things and develop the courage to just “give it a go”, even in the toughest of times. It’s why Lauriston girls continually surprise with their tenacity and willingness to ‘search outside the box’ for lateral solutions.
With constant nurturing from teachers, the camaraderie that builds between peers during the senior years on camps, at Howqua, on trips and tours, and from being part of a VCE or IB cohort creates a sense at Lauriston that you are ‘in this together’. Those relationships and group support forge a unique sense of belonging and are solid foundations for adult life.
A chance to lead
Beginning in Year 2, every Lauriston student learns and practices the five building blocks of leadership; confidence, organisation, responsibility, teamwork and public speaking.
Leadership is considered a skill to be developed from every perspective, be it through involvement in leadership committees, House and School captaincies, Club and Co-curricular leaderships or speaking opportunities in assemblies and of course, in the classrooms. Experience tells us that exposure to responsibility from an early age lets students to develop their teamwork, confidence, and organisation skills. Leadership is also constantly modelled by members of staff who provide positive examples of a committed approach to leading and stewardship.
Year 6 leadership program
Students learn that passion, an idea to improve a situation and the ability to rally people to collaborate, can create the incremental change that makes a difference.
To that end, the year begins with a two-day leadership conference, opened by a motivational speaker who inspires the girls to harness the power of resilience and explains the importance of attitude and goal setting.
Workshops on leadership and presentations from Year 12 captains and community leaders demonstrate to the girls the qualities of today’s most effective leaders and build to a Leadership Change Project linked to the curriculum.
During Term 2 the girls work in groups to deep dive and map out a project of their choice using digital planning technologies such as Padlet. In Term 3 they create and flesh out possible solutions and in Term 4 they implement and present their projects.
Examples of past Leadership Change Projects include implementing a student safe space, complement jars to enhance student wellbeing and raising awareness of environmental issues and gender equality.
In Year 6, we support a distributed leadership model to enable every girl to hold a position of responsibility and unlock her leadership potential. These include undertaking special duties, leading activities in the classroom and performing at or leading assemblies.
