Leading as Role Models: Building Confidence, Creativity and Community

The SistersIN leadership program has been instrumental in developing Strangford College’s students into confident role models for their younger peers.  The program has fostered maturity, creativity and passion empowering the students to apply theses skills to their everyday lives. The SistersIN Leadership protects have given our female students the opportunity to plan, lead, and impact the people around them, not only helping them to gain and foster skill they may never have known they had but to help others do the same.

All of Strangford’s leadership projects have been met with great success and have had a positive influence on everyone who participated. One such project, called ‘Buddies,’ focuses on building bonds across year groups, allowing seniors and juniors who might not of interacted if not for the project to connect and makes lasting friendships with one another. The Buddies project pairs Year 8 students with Sixth Formers to promote physical activity through energetic games that help to bond the students. By establishing these connection, Buddies helps to ease the transition from primary to secondary schools and ensure that the younger students she friendly familiar faces across the school site. Within Buddies there is a core mental health initiative as  it provides not only friends but mentors for the students, people they can feel comfortable talking with and trust. This project as enabled and empowered the female students into becoming leaders and role models, people that their younger peers can look up to and inspire to be like.

Another project created for the SistersIN program was film club. Film club was created to showcase Moving Image Arts as a GCSE  option to our year 10. Within film club students are encourage to embrace their creativity while working together to collaborate on their own film. Within the Film club students learn the basic information needed to create a short film such as cinematic techniques, pre- production material and much more, with all of the learning that takes place during the project applicable to the GCSE Moving Image Arts course. This gives the year 10 students insight into what this subject will look like at GCSE, allowing students to make a more informed decision when picking their options. Film club has allowed our students to bond amongst peers with common interests and has brought everyone together. This project has crafted a community of like minded individuals and has allowed the SistersIN students to share their passion for Film.

Ultimately, the SistersIN Leadership program has inspired the leaders of tomorrow within Strangford College, providing our female  students with the courage and confidence to embrace the creativity and turn their ideas into reality. The plethora of projects highlights the individuality within our school and stands as testament to the diverse talent that Strangford is so lucky to have. Perhaps most importantly, this program has fostered a sense of belonging by sharing passions with like minded people, building communities within the school and crafting friendships that will never be forgotten. SistersIN has given all of its mentees an experience that will stick with them forever and has began the journey for these young woman to become  next generation of leaders.