Intermediate students learn to lead
A sturdy balloon stack today may be the building blocks for tomorrow’s big thinkers, according to the organisers of last week’s Broadgreen Intermediate leadership day.
Held last week at Stoke’s Jack Robins stadium, Broadgreen Intermediate’s principal Pete Mitchener said the event aimed to grow great leaders within the school and community.
‘‘Every class has groups that are sports leaders or house leaders. The idea is that they are learning the skills of what it is to be a great leader and writing their own job description of what they will be showing us as leaders within our school.’’
Pupils took part in six teambased activities during the day, which ranged from a spot walk to creating a marble run track. They were also paid a visit from Nelson Giants captain Sam Dempster and former Tasman Mako and NZ Ma¯ori player Shane Christie.
The main challenge of the day saw the groups use their cooperative skills to build a 100-balloon free-standing tower.
While attaching the balloons proved easy, a bit of extra thought was required from both teams to stand up unassisted.
The day was organised by the school’s sports co-ordinator Lee Corlett - a former Army PT instructor whose old-school encouragement and emphasis on fun motivated the pupils to col- laborate effectively.
‘‘They’re wonderful kids and they feed off positivity and enthusiasm – if I can be like that that rubs off on them too.’’
Corlett said overall the leadership day – a first such event for the senior pupils -–had been a successful undertaking.
‘‘One of the things at this age is that they all want to be leaders, so the idea of today is when they leave [Broadgreen] at the end of next year they become young leaders at their next school and if we can give them the tools now, they might be future mayors of Nelson or whatever – that’s the long term goal.’’
Class leader Zoe Hefferen said the day had been an enjoyable way to broaden everyone’s leadership potential.
‘‘It’s about having an open mind and being positive, creating ideas but also listening to others and doing everything together.’’