I am considering attending Albany Senior High School and was wondering how leadership selection works.
I attended Albany Senior High School (ASHS) and in 2012 I was a Head Student and the Student Representative on the Board of Trustees. Before jumping in to the selection process that I went through for both positions, I’ll give an overview of the unique leadership opportunity (Impact Projects) that the school has on offer for students.
The “Impact Project” (IP) is a unique offering presented to students and forms the foundation of the schools philosophy to educate students in a dynamic environment that values learning through academic frameworks in a classroom setting while simultaneously allowing students to excel at their passion and develop real world skills. Within this model, a usual 5 day school week consisted of 4 days of regular academic learning and 1 day spent focusing wholly on IPs. When I was at high school, my peers used IP time to develop initiatives, innovations and events that pushed them to build strong interpersonal and leadership while pursuing areas that they considered for future careers or wanted to explore as a passion. For some more context, in the field of science and innovation, two students in the year above me were awarded Gold Crests for their of a carbon filtering device submission to the Google Science fair (http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/2011/05/13/two-new-zealand-school-students-are-finalists-in-the-worldwide-google-science-fair/). Others that I knew used the time to intern at art galleries, produce short films and learn second languages. The atmosphere at the school really cultivated leadership and innovation for those who were excited to push themselves.
When it came to the selection processes for leadership roles, the experiences that students had with their IPs and the skills that they had built along the course of engaging with different stakeholders in the school and wider community became quite relevant. The process of being selected as a Head Student required a nomination from a peer, a written submission from the nominee and then an interview with the senior management team. The SMT were very eager to know about a few things. These were: 1. What skills you brought to the team and how you had built these skills in the past. 2. How you would work in the leadership team with the other students and how you had demonstrated this in the past. 3. Who you thought would be a good addition to the leadership team (recommending another peer). 4. What plans you had for the role and more specifically, what you would focus your time on if selected. The decision for Head Student was made ultimately but the senior management team after nomination from memory.
The process of selection for the role of Student Representative was less complex but more nerve racking because the successful candidate was decided by student votes. The process involved writing a statement outlining why you would be well positioned to act as a good representative of students in a governance position. I found this role very interesting. The issues discussed were quite strategic in nature and focused a lot on the higher level policies and processes around making the school the best it could be. I would say that this was one of the extra curricular activities that I learnt the most from in my final year of high school.
Hope this helps!
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