On Wednesday, the 9th of November Year 7 house leaders George R15, Asher R7, Alex R7, Bri R9, Ruby R12, Oscar R12, James R11, Josephine R16, and Maisie R14 were invited to attend the ‘Be Inspired’ leadership conference at Christ's College. They recount their experience.

Brendan Dooley was the opening speaker who shared how you must keep going to overcome obstacles. We loved his saying about choosing to be 'better or bitter (BOB)'. Brendan has been through quite hard times, but he's always used BOB to help him, choosing to be better rather than bitter.

We were very lucky to listen to various leaders at different inspiring workshops. They shared their experiences with us and set us up with knowledge about how you can become a hard-working and inspiring leader. One of our favourite workshops was run by a woman called Nikki Bleyendaal. Her workshop was all about using drama to build leadership skills. Her message was about giving everybody a chance to be a leader. Nikki was very open and made even the most unenjoyable tasks entertaining. 

All of the students who attended the Be Inspired Conference left with a different perspective of what a leader is. We all took the information we learnt and tried to learn from it. This experience not only made us better leaders but made us better people.

Key messages we loved-

• Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other - John F Kennedy

• To lead is to serve - Francis of Assisi

• Leadership is an action, not a position - Donald McGannon

• If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader - John Quincy Adams

• Leaders aren’t born; they are made through hard work - Vince Lombardi

This conference was a great chance to collaborate with different student leaders from schools all around the city. It was an amazing opportunity because it changed our thinking about leadership, helping us to be better leaders.