Georgina Jones, Community Relations Team Leader
The Community Relations Team
The six Y8 girls in the Community Relations Team are excellent ambassadors for St Cuthbert’s College. Among other duties (such as packing goody bags for Open Day), it’s their job to assist the Admissions Office in welcoming and hosting visitors to the College, especially prospective students and their parents.
They explain what it is like to be a student here, and their enthusiasm is frequently infectious.
“We’ve had lots of positive feedback about these girls from prospective parents,” says Melinda Crookenden, the Y8 teacher who is mentoring the leadership programme, which is known as Learning2Lead.
“The girls are taken on a tour of the College to familiarise them with our large campus and are given a list of the questions prospective parents often ask,” explains Mrs Crookenden. “They receive training to help them develop empathy and confidence. In the process, they become more articulate.”
As Ann-Louise Jordan, Director of Admissions, says, “One of the things we want to develop across the College is leadership skills.”
With groups like the Community Relations Team earning the respect of parents and peers alike, that wish is coming true every year as sometimes shy Y7 girls blossom into confident Y8 students.
2011 Community Relations Team:
Georgina Jones (Leader), Elsie Brown (Deputy), Tessa Wylie (Deputy), Juliette Danesh-Meyer, Sophie Barrell, Greer Amos, Greer Hunter.
Alice Brockie, Service Team Leader
The Service Team
The busy girls in the Service Team have a wide range of duties that help to develop their confidence and organisational skills.
They meet and greet the audience going in to the Y1-4 shows. The Development Office values their assistance in setting up the Leadership Breakfast. They’re involved with various activities in Book Week. On Y7 and Y8 Career Days, they can be found meeting and greeting the speakers. And the Service Team girls even help tend the kitchen garden.
“Leadership roles such as these help girls to blossom as they transition from Y7 to Y8,” explains Melinda Crookenden, a Y8 teacher and the leaders’ mentor. “It helps to ground them. These roles have kudos and the girls’ peers look up to them.”
2011 Service Team:
Alice Brockie (Leader), Tiffany Goh (Deputy), Emma Launder (Deputy), Natasha Eady, Lauren Sheed, Olivia Salmon, Sophie Hunter.
Alexandra Freeman-Greene, Playground Angels Leader
The Playground Angels
Playground Angels are the new kids on the block. It’s a new team that was started this year to provide additional leadership opportunities for Y8 girls and it’s already proving a real blessing.
The Angels’ main role is peer mediation. Each lunchtime, two of the girls are on duty in the Y1-6 playground, making suggestions for games and providing help or advice if the younger girls have problems.
It’s a successful new group but it need not be the last – the College is open to suggestions from anyone about possible new groups that would offer further leadership opportunities.
2011 Playground Angels:
Alexandra Freeman-Greene (Leader), Lucy Caiger (Deputy), Olivia Martin (Deputy).
Holly Shaw, Environment Team Leader
The Environment Team
The Environment Team has had a busy and positive start to the year with the launch of the College Travel Plan. The girls had various tasks such as designing the cover for the plan, running a very successful Junior School launch assembly, where they created and showed a PowerPoint, and performed a play called “10 Purple Possums”.
The team also coordinated the College-wide Walk to School Day with help from the Y13 Sustainability Committee. This day was a great success with hundreds of students and staff participating. Maxx the Pukeko from ARTA was at the College gates with the Y8 Environment Team, handing out spot prizes to girls who walked some or all of the way to school, car-pooled, or caught buses or trains.
The team will be coordinating further activities to encourage students to use alternative transport to and from the College. They will meet with a representative from the Auckland City Council to plan future events. The team have many other ideas about making St Cuthbert’s a more sustainable campus and they will be working on these throughout the year.
The Y8 Environment Team is made up of 18 girls. They submitted a CV and were interviewed for their positions in the team, which has a leader and two deputies. The leader is Michaela Hing and her deputies are Sofia Reps and Elizabeth Huang.
2011 Environment Team:
Holly Shaw (Leader), Rochelle Austin (Deputy), Hartley Holder (Secretary), Rhea Vara, Sandi Niu, Dasha Shieff.
Anna Blair, Media Team Leader
The Media Team
The Y8 Media Team is new this year.
The girls are keen writers and photographers, skills they will develop during the year. “These girls are keeping a record of the many activities in which Y7/8 students are involved,” said Mrs Crookenden, “and their work will appear throughout the year in the College’s publications.”
2011 Media Team:
Anna Blair (Leader),
Nerida Southam (Deputy),
Anna Hall Taylor, Chamonix Stuart, Natalie Gill, Frankie Scoular, Jenny Jiang, Keyi Yin, Aimee Meng.