Cathy Takagaki, retired teacher from Fernwood, facilitated a leadership day at Galiano Community School on Monday, October 26. Two students from GISS and two from SIMS travelled over for the day as part of the training ‘team’. Nineteen Galiano students from grades 5 through 8 called “Griffins” participated.

The day began by creating a “vision” for a successful, healthy school community that included concepts like “friendly, inclusive, active, supportive, respectful”.

The GISS and SIMS students spoke about their experiences in leadership such as being part of the GISS leadership team and being part of leadership programmes during elementary school. Students ran all the team building ‘energizers’ during the day, led discussions, recorded key points during the discussions and participated energetically. The younger students responded with enthusiasm. The student leaders’ most powerful contribution was their energetic and authentic modelling of the notion that, “I like taking part in leadership programmes, because I like helping people”.

The Galiano students learned skills to support:

• organizing and running games for younger students,
• helping with playground supervision: one-on-one support of the ‘lonely’ child or the reluctant child, basic skills in helping to resolve conflicts, and knowing when to get adult help,
• organizing and running school spirit days (e.g. pyjama day, pet day, etc.),
• helping to run Whole School Meetings, and
  exploring ideas for community service

Thank you to Cathy Takagaki for submitting this story and photos.