9 students from Totara had the privilege of attending a Leadership Day for young leaders in Selwyn.

Our names are Russell and Travis, we are two of the 9 people who got into the leadership programme on Tuesday 4th April.

It started off with an introduction to the course by the presenter of the event, he talked about what to expect and some of the workshops we would be doing that day. He then welcomed a lively and charming man called Rory who shared funny stories with an overarching message connecting to challenge, unity and passion. After the hour long seminar the 3 groups went out to morning tea and were given permission to play on Foster Park.

After that we got started on the workshops which were run by Year 13’s. The three workshops each connected to one of the main points, challenge, unity and passion. After all of the set workshops we selected our next two workshops for after break. We had lunch which consisted of sushi and subway plus some fruit that was left over from morning tea.

After our lunch time we came back in and went to our first of the two workshops Travis started off with EOTC (Education Outside The Classroom) whilst Russell did Welcoming New Learners. Travis and Russell both did a media workshop. We wrote feedback to the event host and then travelled back to school.

This program has certainly made us better leaders. It has taught us general leadership, specifics and everything in between. A couple things we took away is that a leader has to be clear with their team if they want to go far and you can't change the situation you are in but you can change how you look at it.

By Russell and Travis