Select students from every high school in Wagga have completed this year’s Wagga School Leaders Program. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
Select senior students from every one of Wagga Wagga’s high schools have graduated from Committee 4 Wagga’s Wagga School Leaders Program.
The Wagga School Leaders Program’s objective is to develop high school students into positive, successful ambassadors for the city.
Students participating in the program attend seven modules over seven days across the course of the year, with each module of the curriculum designed to achieve different learning outcomes.
Jum Lamont from Jumpstart Communications helped lead a number of the modules and said he was excited by the maturity he had seen in this year’s students.
“The growth is really remarkable,” Mr Lamont said.
“At the beginning of the program, some of the students may be quite shy, or holding back a little, but as the program has continued we’ve got to see them absolutely flourish.
“The growth that comes through programs like this is enormous and you can see that through their confidence, their awareness and their understanding of their strength and weaknesses.”
The program engages students in a series of challenging mental and physical exercises including abseiling at the Army Recruit Training Centre Kapooka, workshops, lectures, regional industry excursions and mentoring sessions to develop their capacity to become successful leaders and community representatives.
Kooringal High School’s Madeline Priest and Kildare Catholic College’s Macca Edwards were two of the students to complete the 2024 program and are encouraging other students to give it a go in 2025.
“If you commit wholeheartedly, you will get so much out of this program,” Mr Edwards said.
“When I was offered the program, a lot of my friends said no, they didn’t want to do it because they thought … I’m not sure if they thought it was a waste of time and they just didn’t want to do it. But how wrong they were; honestly, this was the best thing for me that I could do.”
Ms Priest said students in the program were mentored by other Riverina leaders and by having that support, they’d improved their leadership skills.
“The supportive environment that has been presented to us by all the different co-ordinators has been so helpful and being able to then do it alongside our peers makes it such a great place to learn and grow so many different skills.”
Students who completed the program graduated on Friday (21 June).
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