In 2021, we were approached by the Management School at the University of Waikato to nominate a small number of Year 13 students to join a pilot WMS Leadership Academy in 2022. This is specifically aimed at students in their final year of high school. Our students are Hitesh Malhotra, Campbell Wood, Jack Broomfield, Hugo Barbour, Christian-Lee Pogai, Thomas Verry, Jackson Murphy and Cooper Wink. All have demonstrated potential leadership in the fields of sport, academia, culture or service.

The programme is designed to develop students’ leadership skills, prepare them for life and beyond, build their confidence in networking with others and provide an opportunity to expand their peer groups by mingling with talented students from many different schools and backgrounds. In this pilot, there are students from within Waikato, Rotorua and the Bay of Plenty.

As part of the Academy, our students are completing an online university paper on Leadership – one of the WMS flagship first-year papers. The paper is structured around 'Five practices of exemplary leadership' ­ which Kouzes and Posner derived from studying quality leadership experiences. The students are exploring and developing the practices that individuals need in order to lead successfully in a range of contexts.

Involvement in the Academy involves a combination of personal readings, online tutorials, group tasks and in-person events at the University campus.