Set up a society at school - you'll learn about leadership
Being a sixth-former today is all about being impressive. Gone are the days when a good work ethic and passion were enough to put you on a fast track to getting a job. The focus now is on Ucas points and good attendance.
Students are led to believe they’re only as good as their grades, and the emphasis on targets is taking the fun out of school.
We’re also told employers want us to have acquired “enrichment” and “soft skills”. At the beginning of the academic year, I needed to do something that displayed such skills to put on my personal statement. So I set up the Christian Union (CU) at Hove Park school, with a friend.
It hasn’t been easy. Right from the start we had to learn about the difficulties of admin and advertising, having to change the name from “Christian Union” to Alpha Group after some teachers suggested it sounded too exclusive, and having to reprint and re-paste posters after some were taken down.
Schools can often feel like a hostile place to start and publicise student-run groups and it can be really difficult to set up a society while in sixth form.
Rosy Ellis, 18, helped set up a CU at Varndean College. She says it is actually members’ parents who have been most hostile because they see school as a place of learning, not a place for fun and discussion. But the biggest problem Ellis has had, is convincing participants to stay.
Facing hostility helped us to develop resilience and really tune in to what made us want to lead the club
I thought this hostility might have been attributable to the nature of the group, but after digging around a little more it became clear that I was wrong. Other students who set up societies face hostility or apathy too.
Rosie Powell, 16, a student at Priory school, Lewes, set up a choir last year. She says that many of her peers weren’t at all interested in what she was doing, and this apathy was hard to overcome.
Similarly, Grace Walford, 17, a student at Brighton Hove and Sussex sixth form college, battled to set up a netball group when she was at Dorothy Stringer school. Students told her they were “tired from work”, or had “better things to do”But we all agree that setting up student groups has enabled us to develop our skills, and believe the difficulties we’ve encountered have been worth it.
Facing hostility and apathy has helped us to develop resilience and really tune in to what made us want to lead our clubs. Without perseverance, none of us would have been able to overcome the obstacles and lead the successful groups we do now.
The chance to develop leadership skills was also invaluable; we learned to take charge of what the group did and to deal with external issues. Similarly, we acquired the skill of building a community – bringing the group together as a team and establishing a safe space.
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As well as enabling us to develop skills that “look good” on our personal statements and CVs, starting a society at school helped us to refine skills we use every day – the ability to gauge the mood in a room, to manage projects, to speak in public.
James Miles, head of sixth form at Hove Park school, says students are unlikely to set up their own groups without teacher backing. But he emphasises that universities and employers value greatly the skills that starting a student group can help to cultivate, such as independence, initiative, and passion.
Schools and colleges should be doing more to encourage students to set up and run groups, if for no other reason than to encourage friendships across year groups. My own CU spans four year groups, allowing us to share our knowledge and revision tips.
School is a place for young people to explore and discover a sense of self, and student-run groups are a fantastic – and free – way of doing this.
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