Hi,

Just wanted to say thanks for a great day at the Student Staff Partnership Symposium. This was the students first in person event since Covid and they thoroughly enjoyed it. They were so enthusiastic to tell me and our principal how they wanted to start a student council and how they loved all the workshops and the facilitators. You inspired them (and me) to do more in our school, great job!!

Regards,

Grainne

Hello Christian,

I attended the symposium last year and remembered you showed us that you had a website on how you ran your student council and some videos for the daily news reports that you guys do. Would you be able to provide me with where I can find this information? I'm teaching grade 8 this year and want to do a student council and hopefully implement the announcements even once a week, sometime during this school year.

I hope you had a great summer and look forward to hearing from you soon.

-Kamar

Hey Christian,

I was hoping that you would have some time to chat – we are hosting a Newcomer Conference at the end of October – I was hoping you and your students would be willing to help! You did such an amazing job at the leadership conference!

Do you have a few minutes to chat sometime this week?

Looking forward to your response.

Ana Rita

Hi Christian,

I just wanted to get in touch with you regarding the student council that you've created at your school. I remember you mentioning a voting template and student code if I recall correctly and wanted to see if you would be willing to share that will me because I've talked to my 7's about it and we'd love to create one for next year but are not sure where to start.

If you have any helpful advice or resources it would be greatly appreciated.

Take care and talk soon,

David
Grade 7, St. Joachim

We wanted our event team to reflect the goal of the event - to empower students and staff to be partners in shaping school life - but in this case, partners in shaping our event. The core event team consisted of three students and three staff members. A student was chosen to be the event chair. A dozen volunteers helped staff the event, along with workshop leaders and student MCs.

Presenters. Student leaders were asked to come up with a list of keynote speakers. Instead, they came back to us with one choice for speaker. We contacted Akeem Haynes and realized quickly that Akeem was right for our event. Akeem was as engaging and inspiring as we expected, and following the presentation, delegates had the opportunity to have their pictures taken with Akeem and his bronze medal. Akeem then went to All Saints to present for students there, making full use of the time we had booked with him. Following Akeem, Christoff Kyere then presented to student leaders on allyship and being an antiracist. Allyship is an important topic that we hope to explore more with student leaders.

Staff Sessions. Staff sessions focussed the structures we have built at All Saints to empower students to be partners in the school. Much of the discussion focussed on student councils and including students in decisions that affect their school life. Great participation from staff who provided examples of what was working at their schools.

Live broadcast of opening ceremonies. In addition to broadcasting the event back to All Saints and to principals whose schools were attending, we wanted to demonstrate that video announcements can be used to amplify student voice. There were many questions from staff delegates following the opening ceremonies about how they could run a similar program at their schools. By no means did the opening ceremonies go perfectly, but we were able to show how our daily video announcements can empower students.

Registration and communications with delegates. One of our team’s goals was to provide students with an event that feels like a professional conference. We took the extra time to print proper signage and provide all candidates with name tags and lanyards. We also attempted to engage students and staff before and after the conference. We have offered to support schools implement programs - a team from All Saints is ready to go to other schools to help run elections or set up video announcements.

The Team: The student-staff partnership model was beneficial both in terms of student learning and growth, and delivery of a successful conference. Students took the lead on a number of initiatives and were successful in meeting the expectations of the task. For example, students chose and booked the keynote speaker, filmed and edited the Brooklyn Nine-Nine themed video introduction, and created the first drafts of the student-led workshops. The relationships between student leaders and staff had been developed over a number of years and a level of trust had already been established. Some had previously been engaged with The Morning Show and others with student council. Knowing what students had delivered in the past through other leadership opportunities, gave staff the confidence that students would be able to rise to the challenge. We will continue to try to provide authentic leadership opportunities within in the school to prepare students for the big opportunities when they arise.

Supporting students in the development of presentation skills. Student-led workshops were delivered to a test group of intermediate students prior to the symposium. Presenters were provided with feedback from the test group. Although beneficial, presenters needed additional opportunities to practice presentations/workshops prior to the event. Also, each group should have a dedicated staff mentor to help develop presentations from beginning to end. This will be easier in the absence of work-to-rule measures. Presenters also indicated that more opportunities to engage students during presentations would have been beneficial to delegates.

More team building activities during plenary sessions. I have participated in a number of student leadership events in the past. I have felt that many of the team building activities were hokey and not particularly useful. However, now that we have run an elementary level event ourselves, I can see that these activities are essential for getting students into a participatory mindset for the workshops and for keeping students engaged during longer presentations. In the future, we will definitely replicate some of the activities that we’ve seen at CSLIT and modify them for an elementary audience.

Live broadcast of opening ceremonies. Our team has been asked to participate in Newcomer Day at the end of October and live broadcast the opening ceremonies similar to what we did at the Student-Staff Symposium. We will be working with the ESL department and have an opportunity to involve our Cultural Connections team (segment of The Morning Show) in the project. We now know we need to tighten up the program and eliminate the segments from the show that are not directly related to an opening ceremony (for example Word of the Day). We should focus on the ceremony itself, rather than on The Morning Show announcements.

Catering. This may be outside the scope of the practicum, but I feel the need to mention it to document it for the future. Coordinate with the caterer (in this case Pizza Nova) to ensure food arrives within a reasonable time of lunch. The food arrived 45 minutes before lunch and it was cold before students and staff had a chance to partake. This wasn’t because we were late. The food just arrived too early.

Student-Level Leadership Framework.

Phase 3 of the practicum proposal has not been completed at this time. I presented with Mike Consul at a CSLIT executive meeting to recruit high school student leaders to the project. We believed that students at the high school level would be required to complete this phase of the practicum. A template for the Framework was completed by the CSLIT executive following that meeting. The project had to be delayed until the conclusion of work-to-rule measures. By the time the measures were lifted, there was limited time to organize the symposium and complete the leadership framework. Mike Consul has since been replaced as Catholic Student Leadership representative. The plan is to connect with the new representative Azniv Jorge in the New Year to gage interest in the project.