Year 8 – 2019
In Year 8 I was a part of the Peer Support leadership program, where every Thursday Tutor Group we were lead through different activities as a Year 8 house cohort, lead by the Year 11 Peer Support Leaders. I really enjoyed the program and was sad to see it conclude at the end of term two. It was extra beneficial as I not only got to know the members in Forrest in my year group better, becoming much better friends with them, but also got to know some of the year 11’s who I then recognised when placed into vertical tutor groups in year 9.
Year 10 – 2021
In year 10, I was given the opportunity to become a peer support leader, and was delighted when I was accepted into the role. I remembered the how much I enjoyed and benefitted from the program in year 8 and decided that I would try my best to give the year 8s as good as an experience as I got in year 8, with the goal for them to hopefully be filled with as many positive memories when they look back on the program as I do.
At the end of the year, the year 10’s participated in the Personal Development Program, which allowed us to build better connections with our peers in our houses and push us to learn the fundimental leadership and teamwork skills we would need if were were to continue into peer support leaders in year 11. Once the nine peer support leaders were chosen for each house, we then spent the following week planning each session that was to take place the following year, in groups of three. Each group planned three sessions with our groups briefs being: Think Win-Win, Being Proactive and Synergize. Each session had to follow the brief given and have a planned a warm up, main activity, back-up activity, and de-brief questions, which added further thinking and real work application of the lessons learnt through the games played that session. These sessions needed to last the duration of Tutor Group (30 mins) and entertain and accomodate around 20 Year 8s. This was mainly achieved through fun group games and puzzles. I found that I really enjoyed seeing the then year 7s being engaged and enjoying the activities that I had planned and it gave me ideas on how to build on the success of these activities in the future and also ways in which I could do things even better next time.
Year 11 – 2022
As a continuation from Year 10’s Peer Support Planning, in Semester One this year, we ran the sessions we planned the previous year. It was hard at the start to organise and run the sessions, as the bonds were not yet created with the year 8’s, and running sessions in this way was new and unfamiliar to us. We were also new to working together as a group, so it took some time for us to feel comfortable and at ease running the peer support sessions. I was able to use my previous knowlege and experience coaching numerous children of different ages both in school and out of school prior to running peer support, to give me the upper hand in getting the year 8’s attention and retaining it throughout the session. It took lots of courage to run the session on your own and speak confidently and clearly to a large group of children, as that was daunting at the start of peer support, though that got much easier as we ran more sessions.
During my time as a Peer Support Leader, I strengthened and improved my teamwork, collaboration and initiative skill sets, as those were qualities we had to use every week. I developed the ability to take the initiative to deviate from a session plan if it meant the year 8’s would be more engaged in a task, was able to work collaboratively within the Peer Support leaders and beyond to plan and set up each Thursday and utilised feedback on how the sesson ran, reflecting, listening to the ideas of my team and sharing ideas of how I felt it could run better in the future. This was done in our meetings every Tuesday recess, where we fed back opinions and ideas of how the session ran and how to improve, and planned with the group the session the following week, allocating roles e.g. who was picking up equipment and coming early to set up.
I learned many things about myself due to Peer Support, such as that I am good at getting large groups of people’s attention and retaining it to get instructions across clearly, a skill I believe come from my hours of coaching athletics, netball and gymnastics outside of school. I also learnt that I need to push myself to be more confident to share my ideas in a group setting, rather than holding back, as peer support has taught me that if I have the confidence to speak up, it really positively impacts the situation or the session plan.
Overall I really benefitted from the Peer Support Program, from year 8 through to year 11 and have learnt so much about myself and others from being a part of the course. I would highly recommend other students to take part in it and apply to be a leader when the time comes, they will not regret it.
