Henry Habben, 8D

My name is Henry Habben and I decided to become a student leader for the Wilsmere house in 2022. I decided to take on this responsibility to make an impact in the school community. I realized that the best way to try and make a positive change in the school was to enlist in this position and access the resources that were required. This positive change can be a result of fundraisers or raising house spirit in school sport days.

So how did this task become a possibility? First, there was a written application. Anyone who wanted to become eligible for the job completed the application. There were the basic questions but one question asked for what we could do to make a change. I talked about fundraising and motivation for my school, and how I wanted to create something unique. This basic part was only 150 words or so, but it set a tone and expectation for what the leadership team were expecting from me. The next stage of the process was a group interview. I was invited to a room with 8 of my peers to talk about which values were the most important. We collaborated and all decided that every value was important but we all concluded that respect was the biggest value we needed to focus on. We elected this value because we all believed that respect was the stronghold of all the other values of ASPIRE. We knew that respect held up all the other values because it is a sign of acceptance towards one another, and a sign that you won’t let the other person down. Another one of our chosen values was participation. We chose this because a lot of the other values, such as excellence, can’t happen without participating first. The next stage was the speech. In this stage, I presented to the students of our year level why I was the best candidate for role. The speech was important because it let the students know who they could come talk to, if need be, and who will be representing them if elected. This was the basic leadership process and how I became a student leader.

What I am looking forward to next year as a student leader is helping in the community, and encouraging my house in school and extracurricular tasks.