Download student leadership policy - Melbourne Girls` College

STUDENT LEADERSHIP POLICY
RATIONALE
Melbourne Girls’ College (MGC) educates girls to achieve their highest potential, so they become selfdirected, confident and skilled as they take their places in society. The College ethos “where girls lead
and achieve” is embraced throughout the life and activities of MGC. The College aims to be an
exemplary provider of leadership opportunities for all girls, ensuring that they become well-balanced
and resilient young women capable of sustaining strong and supportive relationships in a changing
world, and contributing to society’s general well-being. The College Community values Diversity,
Excellence and Teamwork.
The student leadership program should therefore reflect the need for all girls to develop leadership
skills and have opportunity to put them into practice. An MGC Leader is within all of our students.
OBJECTIVES
The aim of the Girls’ Leadership program is:
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To provide training for all girls, across all year levels, aimed at leadership development
To give students opportunities to practice and refine their leadership skills
To encourage students to regularly reflect on their goals and achievements
To develop confidence and competence in girls’ in their leadership ability by providing
opportunities through School Assemblies, College Swimming Carnival, College Athletics
Carnival, School Productions and other extra-curricular activities
To provide support and encouragement to student leaders
To promote and advertise all leadership opportunities to as wide an audience as possible
To encourage girls to undertake formal leadership positions within the school
To ensure that girls have opportunity to access local, regional, state, interstate and overseas
leadership opportunities
GUIDELINES
The Leadership program will:
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Address Girls’ Leadership issues and priorities as embodied in the College Strategic Plan, as
well as the special needs of individuals and groups
Be coordinated, planned, ongoing and evolving
Be open to all students
Provide training and evaluation sessions for all students
Encourage positive role modelling and peer training in developing leadership skills
Support and assist students to keep a portfolio of their achievements
Be open to any new leadership opportunity that might prevail that meets our priorities
OUTCOMES
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Competent and confident students who are able to plan, run and evaluate school events
Self-sufficient training practices that allow the leadership program to utilise current and past
students to pass on skills, experiences and ideas from year to year.
Effective role modelling of excellent student leadership
Enhancement of School and House Spirit
Reviewed August 2016
MGC LEADERSHIP VALUES
The College recognises and celebrates the achievements of Caroline Chisholm, Dame Enid Lyons,
Hyllus Maris and Dame Nellie Melba through the College House system. Our students should also
strive to embody their House Leaders strengths:
Chisholm – Community
Caroline Chisholm arrived in the new Australian colony in 1838. On her arrival to the new Australian colony she
was appalled at the conditions that greeted poor, vulnerable migrants. At just 30 years of age she commenced
work on improvements in a practical hands-on manner, meeting the ships at the wharves, setting up job schemes
and campaigning for better working conditions.
In 1841 she established the Female Emigrant’s Home in Sydney which not only provided shelter but also helped
unemployed young women to find work, not just in the city but in rural areas where work was more plentiful. She
worked on improving conditions on the ships and arranged for the families of convicts to be transported to
Australia free of charge so that they could be reunited. In order to create independence and avert hardship,
Caroline established the Family Colonisation Loan Society, a form of which still exists successfully today.
An MGC student leader is considerate, compassionate, ethical, open-minded, socially conscious,
humble, and willing to participate
Lyons – Representation
This 'Grand Dame of Politics' was the first woman to sit in the Australian House of Representatives. She was the
widow of Joseph Lyons, Premier of Tasmania and Prime Minister of Australia, and was elected to the seat of
Darwin, Tasmania, in 1943.
She became the first woman to serve in Cabinet and was twice re-elected Vice-President of the Executive
Council. After her retirement from politics she worked as a journalist and published three books and served on
the Board of Control of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
An MGC Student Leader is responsible, political, democratic, approachable, and willing to equally
represent others as well as themselves
Maris – Teamwork
Hyllus Maris, of Yorta Yorta and Wurundjeri descent, was born in 1934 in Echuca, Victoria and moved to
Shepparton in 1939, where Maris attended school. She subsequently moved to Melbourne, where she helped
found the National Council of Aboriginal and Island Women in 1970. From this body grew the Aboriginal medical
and legal services in Fitzroy, of which Maris was a co-founder.
In the mid-1970s, she collaborated with the Austrian-born author, Sonia Borg, in writing Women of the Sun, a
history of Australia over the previous 200 years, as seen through the experiences of a number of Aboriginal
women. Adapted as an ABC television series in 1982, Women of the Sun won many awards, including the United
Nations Media Peace Prize and the AWGIE award of the Australian Writers Guild. Maris was largely responsible
for the establishment, in 1982, of Worawa College, Victoria’s first Aboriginal school.
An MGC Student Leader is empathic, co-operative, collaborative, respectful, supportive, inclusive of
others, a problem solver and capable of being an effective team leader or team member
Melba - Voice
The first Australian-born soprano to win world renown was born Helen Porter Mitchell, in Burnley St, Richmond,
less than 1km from the College. She first sang in Melbourne in 1884 and made her international debut as
Madame Melba in Europe three years later.
Her voice was soon heard in every major opera house in the world and she was often invited to sing for royal
audiences. When she returned to Australia in 1902 she was mobbed by her fans in Sydney, Melbourne and
wherever else she went.
An MGC Student Leader is confident, inspirational, true to herself, a role model, resilient, able to
listen, able to use their initiative and has ideas that demand to be heard
Reviewed August 2016