Year 12 Leadership Training Days

In preparation for the selection of the new Senior Council, Year 12 recently underwent two afternoons of leadership training with Mr Thompson.

We believe that every pupil at Windermere will, in their adult lives, be called upon to lead and that leadership is a set of skills which can be learnt.

The two training sessions set out to engage every member of the year group in thinking about themselves as future leaders, and through giving them exercises of leadership, to appreciate that they are already on that journey.

As well as group exercises, the students considered who they thought were the most important world leaders, past and present, and why. They thought about what the most important qualities of leadership are (answers below) and they started to look beyond traditional models of leadership to embrace empathy and vulnerability as fundamental elements of modern leadership.

When it came to considering the most important leadership qualities, the students were given 25 different characteristics and skills and asked to arrange them into a diamond shape, to reveal which are the most important to them. They were then asked to label the characteristics with the names of people they know who model each quality. It was wonderful to see the students naming several staff, including operational staff and parents as well as recent students.

Combining the three groups views, their top choices were:

• Trust
• Excellent Communication
• Listening Well

How interesting! We think that the qualities that people identify as important in others are usually the ones they most aspire to themselves. These three choices spoke very well of the characters of our Y12 students.

Windermere School is an Independent Boarding and Day School for ages 3-18, across Junior School, Senior School and Sixth Form. The school offers holiday courses and a summer school programme, as well as short term immersion courses for international pupils, as well as an award winning IB programme. Join the adventure today >