Leaders of mount waverley recognised for positively impacting school culture

Here at Halogen, besides running inspirational leadership events, the other amazing thing we get to do each year, is uncover and acknowledge incredible team leadership initiatives occurring around Australia.

With the valued support of our great friends at CPA Australia, ATLAS (Australia’s Team Leadership Award for Students) is now in its third year, and we are jumping out of our skins with excitement to announce the next winner!!

This year, Halogen was honoured to welcome a high profile panel of judges aboard to help us. The panel, comprising of CPA Australia Chief Executive, Alex Malley, academic Dr Susan Carland, astrophysicist Dr Alan Duffy, NITV executive Tanya Orman and Thankyou co-founder Daniel Flynn used their own wide-ranging experiences and insight to select an eventual winner from the many fabulous submissions.

In 2016, Halogen is thrilled to announce Mt Waverley Secondary College Student Leadership Team as this year’s ATLAS winners!

This large and diverse student team has transformed the school’s entire student leadership program, building a stronger emphasis on student voice and engagement. By implementing the VicSRC Teach The Teacher program, students have developed professional learning sessions for teachers on ‘feedback’ and ‘growth mindset’, and have created a college-wide feedback form that allows students to give feedback to their teachers.

Imagine that! Students telling teachers how best to do their job! Despite being potentially controversial and divisive, this project has in fact had the opposite effect, serving to unify and strengthen the school community by providing a shared language and common focus.

In fact, the project is so successful, that schools from across Victoria have been contacting the Mt Waverley team to find out how they can achieve the same outcomes. And so, in their customary pro-active way, the Mt Waverley student leadership team decided to organise and run a professional learning conference for students and teachers from across the state.

What an amazing accomplishment! As conference and event organisers ourselves, here at Halogen, we’re full of admiration for what these young leaders have been able to achieve, not to mention the way in which they used the power of their networks and community to access the necessary resources to make their goal a reality.

Our judges were so impressed by the scope Mt Waverley’s submission and had many wonderful things to say about the “Leaders at Mount” student leadership project…

Chief Executive of CPA Australia, Alex Malley, described it as “an extremely admirable and spirited initiative. This team has exhibited an abundance of creativity, borderless-thinking and passion.”

“This programme is a wonderful example of having students own their education and environment,” adds Dr Alan Duffy.

Dr Susan Carland and Daniel Flynn both noted the long-lasting impact of a best practice model on wider school culture. And Tanya Orman was particularly impressed by the emphasis placed upon respecting diverse voices and the contribution of individuals in achieving a larger goal.

In recognition of their achievement, student leaders from Mt Waverley will receive an exclusive leadership masterclass with Alex Malley, who provides career guidance to young people via CPA Australia’s online mentoring community, thenakedceo.com.

As major sponsors of ATLAS, CPA Australia attended the Halogen IMAGINATION event in Melbourne on November 7^th, to present certificates of achievement to the students before an audience of 900 young leaders from schools across Victoria.

Mount Waverley Secondary College Student Leadership Co-ordinator, Ms Hayley Dureau is proud to see the acknowledgement her student leaders are receiving for their tireless work. She says, “In just two years we have seen the number of students involved in student leadership more than triple. Our school has transformed from one where students were passive participants in the daily running of the school, to one where students, teachers and school leaders collaborate and work together to improve the climate of the college.”

At Halogen we think that’s pretty impressive and we echo the congratulation to all involved.

Thanks to the ongoing support of our friends at CPA Australia, ATLAS returns in 2017. So, if you know of a student team working together to achieve real impact – or, if you’re planning a team initiative and expect to see measurable results in the coming year, let us know! We LOVE sharing good news stories about young people doing great things in their schools and communities.

Too often the achievements of our youth are disregarded or overlooked. Let’s work together to change that!

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