Students at St Joseph’s Primary School are provided with many opportunities to develop their leadership skills. School captains, sports captains and Mini Vinnies executive roles are elected annually. They meet on a regular basis to discuss and plan weekly school assemblies and a range of issues and initiatives as needed.

Year 6 students are able to act in the capacity of Peer Support Leaders after completing a training course. This program involves children in the Year 6 classes working with a mixed group of children from all other year grades to promote a community aspect to the school, or to discuss issues relating to “bullying” as part of our Pastoral Care program. It provides the opportunity for leadership for the older children and some support and links for the younger children. Training for the program will commence each year in Year 6. The Year 5 children participate in a leadership day in preparation to become Year 6 leaders.

Every child in Year 6 is provided with leadership opportunities, including school captains and sports captains, Kinder buddies and orientations, leading our weekly award assemblies, Monday morning flag ceremonies and greeting special visitors to our school just to mention a few.

To ensure a warm welcome and smooth start to school life, all Kinder students are assigned a ‘Buddy’ from Year 6. The new Kinder students meet their ‘Buddy’ during their orientation program with Year 5 in Term 3 (August). This ensures that each Kinder student is greeted by a familiar, friendly face on their ‘first day’ and that they have someone to assist them to settle into school routines, when they commence school the following year. The ‘Buddies’ continue to work together throughout the year in classroom activities such as play-based learning, paired reading and writing activities. This provides Year 6 students with the opportunity to become good mentors and role models across a range of skill areas.

Children in our younger grades also have opportunities to lead and experience leadership skills, for example, Year 4 students work with Year 1 students being role models of taking turns, playing games and building resilience. All classes have class leaders with special weekly roles and responsibilities. Here we witness leadership skills and initiative.  Our Year 1 and 2 children assist with our daily morning school prayer at our assembly on the microphone.