Hello everyone, I am Ella Lysaght the Learning Support Leader for 2024.

I am a year 13 at John Paul II High School and am thoroughly enjoying my time here so far. My future goals are to achieve university entrance and attend the University of Canterbury in 2025 to study law and management. I used to struggle with school, especially in the first year of NCEA (level 1); I lacked motivation and found the adjustment to the increased workload quite challenging. This year I want to combat this issue to ensure other students do not feel like this but feel supported instead. 

My involvement as a student leader has mostly been working in committees which are beneficial in a litany of ways such as involving the student body and inspiring future leaders. So far, we have worked on getting to know each other, creating learning support posters, offering learning support during whanau literacy times and have begun developing plans for the future. Moving forward we will work on talking to some year 8’s from St Patrick's that are coming to JPII or those that want some firsthand information on high school. I feel as though this is beneficial to the future of John Paul II students as the transition from primary to secondary can be quite daunting and they may not know what to expect. I am looking forward to collaborating with other student leaders to cover all aspects of learning support and create a bigger team to tackle certain tasks while also developing new and innovative ideas. I am looking forward attending a leadership course in Christchurch early April and hope to bring back some deeper insight into how to improve myself as a leader.

I believe that school is something students should value as it can open a lot of doors for success in the future. I hope my leadership can bring some enjoyment to school in alignment with the Catholic values in the school.