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Empathy to Impact is a podcast designed for educators dedicated to global citizenship education. We explore themes of sustainability, service learning, student leadership, and community engagement, empowering students to create a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.
While educators grasp the “why” and “what” of global citizenship, this podcast delves into the “how”. Through engaging storytelling and student voices, we provide authentic connections to curriculum, and showcase practical tools and frameworks that you can implement in your classroom.
By viewing learning experiences through the lens of Empathy to Impact, we can inspire students to take meaningful steps toward becoming global citizens and transform the culture of education in our schools.
Join us as we amplify the voices and stories of students who take ownership of their learning and make a difference in their communities.
This podcast is brought to you by Inspire Citizens.
Mr Guy Hewson: So, my name is Claire, and I'm a Year 9 student at West Island.
Mr Guy Hewson: My name's Alessandra, I'm also a year 9 student at West Island. My name is Brandon, and I'm in Year 9 in West Island. I'm Taya from Year 10 at West Island School. My name is Aria, and I'm in Year 9 in West Island. Hi, I'm Jasmine, and I'm in Year 9 in West Island School.
Scott Jamieson: It is fantastic to have you all here this morning to have a conversation about student leadership. And where I'd like to start today is…
Scott Jamieson: I want to ask you guys, what are the important skills and attributes that you feel are important for student leaders?
Mr Guy Hewson: I think it's good to have, communication skills and leadership skills, because you need both of those to be able to work,
Mr Guy Hewson: to work with the team properly, and to be able to organize everything so everything goes smoothly. I think you need quite good organization, especially, like, if you're leading the team, because you need to make sure that you organize the rest of the team to be on time at the right place.
Mr Guy Hewson: For me, I think it's communicating, because I think you have to talk with your peers, and if you're training some of the new ambassadors, you have to make sure you come across clearly to parents and to anyone who you're talking to. For me, I think it's the ability to turn your ideas and your thoughts and passion into action. I think it's really important to have
Mr Guy Hewson: Empathy skills and communication, but also the ability to turn that into some tangible projects, or implement them into the school community, that's really important as a leader.
Mr Guy Hewson: I think having leadership skills is very important, as it helps us by leading students.
Mr Guy Hewson: and guide us.
Scott Jamieson: Fantastic. I think you are all absolutely right. I 100% agree. Thinking about how we communicate, how we invite others to be part of our team and give them some roles and responsibilities.
Scott Jamieson: Delegating those roles, but through communication, through the way we facilitate with our leadership skills, but also that idea of taking an idea and turning it into action. I think that's so, so important.
Scott Jamieson: And I think it was Aria who mentioned something about ambassadors. And I wonder if you guys can elaborate, what are the opportunities that you have at your school to be leaders?
Mr Guy Hewson: So, we were all student ambassadors, or are currently student ambassadors, and this is a leadership program that we have signed up to and have gotten into. So, currently, me, Alessandra, Claire, and Jasmine are student ambassador leaders, so what we do is, we get to be student ambassadors for our second year.
Mr Guy Hewson: And we basically trained the new round of ambassadors.
Mr Guy Hewson: And Brandon and Taya are former student ambassador leaders, and also student ambassadors.
Mr Guy Hewson: And Taya is now a Pre-16 leader. So, essentially, the Student Faster program is a group of students who support the transition process of our primary schools into,
Mr Guy Hewson: our school, and helps them, integrate them and go through induction days, helps them just settle in and feel more familiar with the school surroundings. We also help lead tours and, support events and presentations.
Mr Guy Hewson: That help empower these communities and help them integrate into the school better.
Mr Guy Hewson: Yeah, so as Tia mentioned, we also like to tour parents around school that are maybe interested, or maybe parents of the new, primary school students, or students that are from another country that would like to join West Island at any stage. This program is also really popular for
Mr Guy Hewson: Maybe pre-16 students, or from year 7 to year 9 students, because
Mr Guy Hewson: It's more… there's a higher chance of them being accepted, and, it's better for them for maybe future roles, just like TEA.
Scott Jamieson: Desmond, I want to follow up on something you were just talking about there. How does one become a student ambassador? Is there an application process, or if someone wants to take on some of this leadership responsibility, how do they get involved?
Mr Guy Hewson: Alright, so fundamentally, there is a application form that you can submit, and you just have to write about why you think that you would be a good student ambassador, what, what your attributes are, and what… so maybe some examples about why you think you would be a good, suitable for the role. And so me, Claire, Alessandra, and Aria's job is to,
Mr Guy Hewson: Look through all of those applications and pick 20 to 30 students
Mr Guy Hewson: From maybe this year, around 80 applied, and we have to narrow that down and filter them, and now we have a group of 32 students.
Scott Jamieson: So this is something that you as ambassador leaders take on. When those new students apply, this isn't teachers who are picking them, this is something that's your responsibility, is that correct?
Mr Guy Hewson: Yes.
Mr Guy Hewson: So the student ambassador leaders, knowing what we know from last… from our year's student ambassadors, we then look through all the applications and see which students' applications stand out, and who we think has the right skills to become an ambassador. I think this process is really well developed, because it's mostly student-driven, so it helps people
Mr Guy Hewson: It helps to know that the people who are choosing you have been student leaders before, so you know what they're looking for, and
Mr Guy Hewson: It helps with the entire, application process, too. And rather having the mindset of maybe a teacher that maybe already knows a student, it's more about, like, more student, maybe common mindsets.
Mr Guy Hewson: I think it's, like, more student-led, that's why I think it's a really good opportunity, because it was mainly only us students who had to train them, teach them, do a presentation, and it was… we did it all by ourselves.
Scott Jamieson: That's so cool. I think there's a lot of schools out there that could learn from this model, thinking that maybe students in year 9 and Year 10 maybe don't have that level of leadership, but you guys are showing that it is possible, and this program is thriving.
Scott Jamieson: As well as being student-led.
Scott Jamieson: What are some things that would make an application stand out? What are you looking for as you're going through those applications?
Mr Guy Hewson: So, often we look for people who maybe give examples of other leadership positions they might have done. So, for instance, captains of different teams, but also people that maybe talk more about some skills that they have and give, like, a lot of examples.
Mr Guy Hewson: And something else we also look for is how they demonstrate IB learner profiles, and since our school is an IB school, and we really focus on how they exemplify our values and communicate them through the application.
Scott Jamieson: I love that you guys are connecting… sorry, go ahead.
Mr Guy Hewson: And one thing I was going to say is that, and we do make a point of it that I don't think's come out yet, might do in a minute, is that we don't go for the popular kids.
Mr Guy Hewson: So, we do go… and maybe one of you guys could explain this, but we go for the sort of students that might not be as confident, but they just want to try a leadership role. So, I don't know whether somebody wants to kind of pick that.
Scott Jamieson: Let me see if I can frame that as a question for you guys to jump in on.
Mr Guy Hewson: Can I just cough? I'm really struggling with a cold, I'm really sorry.
Scott Jamieson: Yeah, no worries.
Mr Guy Hewson: Sorry, sorry. Anyway, right, I'm done.
Scott Jamieson: So, following up on that, what kind of students are you looking for as you're looking through these applications?
Mr Guy Hewson: So, sometimes we… when we read the applications, if we see some students that, oh, maybe they, like, we know them in person, and we can… we know that they're maybe not as confident, but since this role is such… so good at building up your confidence and your leadership skills and your communication, then we'll essentially pick some of those students to, help develop some of those skills. And adding on to what Aria said, I think we really look for students
Mr Guy Hewson: Who have that growth mindset, who can improve.
Mr Guy Hewson: themselves and their confidence as they go through the role, and not just those who already have the confidence, but those who have the potential
Mr Guy Hewson: And we try to have a large variety and mix of students, because we don't just want to pick the obvious choices, we want to give the opportunity to maybe some of them who haven't been as confident as before, which is why they picked the role. And also, I think this is a really good opportunity for students who haven't had past leadership experiences, because
Mr Guy Hewson: I think that in a school system which is really rigid, where the leadership positions require previous
Mr Guy Hewson: positions, I think that is very conforming, and so our model allows students who haven't had any of these experiences before to get into the system and to actually get some experience.
Scott Jamieson: Yeah, I think that's so important. Sorry, I interrupted somebody, go.
Mr Guy Hewson: Oh, so, our student ambassadors are mainly from years 7 to 10, so I think it's good for them to get the experiences when you get older. You can sign up to pre-16 leader, head student, dynasty leaders, so I think student ambassador's, like, a really good, first step to getting into those older roles.
Scott Jamieson: For sure. I think this is a great opportunity to build that experience, and I love how you don't necessarily need that leadership experience from somewhere else. You guys are looking for people who are looking to develop as leaders.
Scott Jamieson: And that's exactly what we want to be doing in year 70, year 9. Maybe we haven't had that opportunity yet, but maybe this is that opportunity to build those skills and find our way, and develop as a leader, so that we are ready for those next steps.
Mr Guy Hewson: Sorry, one other thing that I would add, which I think it's been mentioned a few times, is that because
Mr Guy Hewson: We also take kids from year 7, 8, 9, 10. What's quite interesting in the way that it's kind of grown as a program is that, you know, if you're wanting to be an ambassador, you might think, oh, it's only going to be the lowest year group of kids that are going to choose it, the year 7s.
Mr Guy Hewson: But actually, we've found that Year 10s apply for it, that have sort of built up some confidence as they've moved through the school. So it is a role that everybody in every year group in our pre-16 years can apply, and do apply for. So we always have four year groups worth of kids.
Mr Guy Hewson: Obviously, themselves is a great asset, because it means that, you know, we have a huge variety of experiences which they can share when they meet with the parents.
Mr Guy Hewson: So, again, I don't know if you can frame a question around that.
Scott Jamieson: Yeah, I think we might circle back to that one. I think, yeah, having the multi-age… we don't often have a chance in school to work with people outside of our own year group, so I think this is really a cool opportunity.
Mr Guy Hewson: It was great when we did the training yesterday, because all of a sudden we've got Year 7s chatting to Year 10s that they might not have ever known before, and we do some, like, icebreaker stuff.
Mr Guy Hewson: Before the actual training starts.
Scott Jamieson: I think that's how we might approach this, actually.
Mr Guy Hewson: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: You also mentioned that part of your responsibility as ambassador leaders was to lead training for new ambassadors. Can you tell me a little bit about what that training entails, how that works, and tell me about your experience, I know you've just had one recently.
Mr Guy Hewson: So, we just had our, training day for the new ambassadors yesterday. So, basically, what we did was we first had a little presentation about what it means to be a student ambassador, some of the things you do, and, like, how to work through being a student ambassador.
Mr Guy Hewson: And then we took them out on a little tour, and we basically got them to tour us, so we, so when… during our presentation, we told them all the things you should say, so then we were, like, doing a real-life scenario with them to get them to actually practice these skills.
Mr Guy Hewson: We also had, Icebreaker at the beginning, because…
Mr Guy Hewson: We have students from years 7 through 10 who may not necessarily know each other otherwise, so it was just a way for them to get a bit more confident talking to other students, which will also help them as student ambassadors, as they'll need to talk to a lot of different people that they may not have met before. And, like, throughout the presentation that we had in the beginning, we also had a lot of interactive activities.
Mr Guy Hewson: Like, for example, we role-played a conversation that sometimes parents like to ask very difficult questions, and it takes quick thinking to, really answer those questions on the spot, so we also had them answer some of those.
Scott Jamieson: That sounds fantastic.
Scott Jamieson: How did you, as leaders, build your skills and build your confidence to be able to come into a space like that and lead a workshop for your peers? What were some of the things you had to do to get ready for that workshop?
Mr Guy Hewson: I think we just,
Mr Guy Hewson: over our time as student ambassadors, at the beginning, we were all quite nervous giving our first tours, but we were given, like, a lot of opportunities to give tours and help out at events, so over time, I think we just got more and more confident with it, and we saw what the, older student ambassador leaders were doing, and I think a lot of us thought it would be pretty cool to lead a new team and teach them what we have learned.
Mr Guy Hewson: Adding on to what Alexander said, I think I really built up my confidence over many tours, because in my first few tours, I was quite nervous, I didn't really know what to say, didn't really know what places I should go to, but after you just get used to it, and you start developing all your confidence, you're able to answer questions really quickly and fluently.
Mr Guy Hewson: And you're just more prepared for it. Yeah, and the way our model is…
Mr Guy Hewson: set up is so that you're giving tours with other student ambassadors as well, so that if you're ever stuck, or don't know what to say, there's always someone to back you up, and I feel like this is really important, especially for those with less confidence, to help build that confidence and communication skills, so it's not, like.
Mr Guy Hewson: Dangerous, or, like, risky for anyone to want to say something.
Mr Guy Hewson: Yeah, so I think this is maybe one of the main reasons why our program is student-led, because, it really focuses on maybe the past experiences of who the leaders are, and they can help induct all those skills, hopefully, into the new student ambassadors.
Mr Guy Hewson: Building on from that, I think, in the first couple of tours, it was really difficult to know where to go, but by the time we'd done a lot of tours, it kind of became second nature, so we didn't necessarily need, someone with us, like another student ambassador giving a tour with us, so I think that experience can help us when we're
Mr Guy Hewson: Also, teaching the new ambassadors, because we can be a bit more confident and maybe more reassuring that it will
Mr Guy Hewson: They'll get really confident really fast.
Scott Jamieson: Fantastic.
Scott Jamieson: I wonder if we can think about your own journey, from when you first applied to be a student ambassador, from your time as student ambassador, from your time as a student ambassador leader, or a Pre-16 leader in some cases.
Scott Jamieson: What are some of the things that you've seen personally in your own growth as a leader? Like, what are some of the important things you've learned along this journey?
Mr Guy Hewson: I've really seen my confidence blossom from maybe when I first applied to be a student ambassador, because, when I first signed up, I pushed myself, because before, I wasn't as confident as speaking, and I really wanted to be able to
Mr Guy Hewson: have that type of skill, because I thought it would be valuable for me later on in life. And with each tour, I could feel my confidence growing, and I knew what to not answer, what questions to answer, and exactly how to answer them, and I feel like just different aspects of me started to show themselves that were maybe previously hidden before.
Mr Guy Hewson: Yeah, I found before I became a student ambassador, I was quite nervous speaking to adults. I didn't really know what to say, but then throughout my time as, like, on tours and at events, I would have to make small talk with the parents, so it wasn't awkward, and I feel like, I got much more confident speaking
Mr Guy Hewson: like, without a plan of what to say, and I became a lot more articulate as well, and actually gained a lot of knowledge of our school systems.
Mr Guy Hewson: And for me, prior to joining this school, I could not think of myself as a leader at all, but because West Islands provided me with so many opportunities to develop my communication skills and leadership skills.
Mr Guy Hewson: I feel like…
Mr Guy Hewson: I found myself at a very confident stage at life, and, I can really articulate my ideas more properly, and…
Mr Guy Hewson: lead a group of students more confidently than I could have before.
Mr Guy Hewson: For me, it's a bit more different, because I find myself as quite an outgoing person, but sometimes it would be a bit too much, because I would tend to talk a lot with the parents, and sometimes it might not be the most relevant things.
Mr Guy Hewson: So, I think, after many more tours, I've been able to just stick to being way more, like, respectful, and saying all the right things, obviously.
Scott Jamieson: Brandon, what are you thinking?
Mr Guy Hewson: Oh, I'm thinking that, throughout my journey as being a student ambassador, I really developed my confidence and my leadership skills towards
Mr Guy Hewson: parents and students.
Scott Jamieson: How might these skills…
Scott Jamieson: be transferred elsewhere. Maybe the work you're doing in class, or thinking about that next transition into senior school, or even beyond West Island.
Scott Jamieson: How might some of these skills that you're developing as leaders
Scott Jamieson: Be beneficial elsewhere in the work you do.
Mr Guy Hewson: I think organization skills could really be transferred to a lot of subjects, since as we get older, we also get busier, and time is more limited, and we have to balance school, life.
Mr Guy Hewson: and also extracurricular activities or, like, sports that we might enjoy. And I think that organizing all of these responsibilities is really important to having a successful future.
Mr Guy Hewson: And I think lately, our teachers have been trying to get us… well, for us year 9 students to ease more, because next year, we have to transfer into our GCSE program, and our teachers have let us know that we have to be more confident in maybe managing our schedules, or doing presentations in front of the entire class.
Mr Guy Hewson: And we have to be able to be prepared for that and not freeze, and so this is just valuable life skills for not just my school life, but maybe even beyond, so… An example of something I've done, actually, this morning is we do a services action project at our school, so we have to do a project to
Mr Guy Hewson: help something to do with what we're passionate about, so me and two of my friends decided to teach netball to some of the Year 7s, and before, I would have been really nervous to, like.
Mr Guy Hewson: explain the rules, and during a game, like, call them out if they've made a mistake, but after doing the student ambassador program, I've really worked on my confidence, so I was able to be quite confident today, which definitely improved the session.
Mr Guy Hewson: I think also throughout the program, you also develop a lot of skills that if you want to… like, your organization skills, such as if you're a precinct 16 leader, you'll have to organize assemblies and different things, and also that includes head student. So I think the skills really correlate with each other, because they're basically
Mr Guy Hewson: Kind of the same.
Mr Guy Hewson: I think also the skills that we tend to teach are also really transferable, as you said, to many other topics or subjects, so which is really good for the students.
Mr Guy Hewson: And in the future, if we ever, like, add a job, if we wanted… if we had, like, an idea that we wanted to
Mr Guy Hewson: do with a team, then we would have to, like, make the idea sound really great, which is something that we do with our school. We talk about all the good aspects of it and make it sound like a really amazing place, so that could definitely be transferred into the future.
Scott Jamieson: Tia talked about some… oh, sorry, go ahead.
Mr Guy Hewson: You read my mind. I was gonna say, I think Tia could say a lot about this.
Scott Jamieson: Well, where I was gonna go with that question, actually, Tia said something earlier about how she didn't see herself as a leader before starting out on this pathway as a student ambassador, and then becoming a Pre-16 leader.
Scott Jamieson: I wonder what advice you would give to students who are thinking about taking that step, maybe aspire to be a leader, but don't necessarily see themselves as a leader yet. What advice might you give to those students?
Mr Guy Hewson: I think?
Mr Guy Hewson: to me, I personally really enjoyed helping the community and making an impact, but I just didn't have that confidence yet. So, to those students who were
Mr Guy Hewson: also like me, I would say… I would tell them to take that step, because that tiny step could take you miles away, and you couldn't have… never have imagined
Mr Guy Hewson: that… that step you took would have brought you to that final destination. So, I think that it's really important that
Mr Guy Hewson: If you see potential in yourself, or you just want to develop your skills, you should take that action to, develop those.
Scott Jamieson: Anyone else want to add anything to that?
Mr Guy Hewson: I think just, like, take any opportunity you could, because
Mr Guy Hewson: I actually applied in year 7 for the student ambassador position and didn't get it, but I really wanted to do it, so I applied again, and I did get in, so even if you don't get into the position at first, then maybe you could also work
Mr Guy Hewson: work on the skills by yourself, and then in the future, you might get the position you want. And I think that just, like, step out of your comfort zone and try new things, and don't be scared for failure, because failure is sitting back and not trying.
Mr Guy Hewson: And success is just keep on… it just comes as you keep on trying and keep growing.
Mr Guy Hewson: And even if you don't see yourself as that type of person, having that type of mindset, unfortunately, will not get you anywhere. So try to adapt and change yourself into who you want to be, not because of who you think you should be.
Mr Guy Hewson: Yeah, because if you want something, but you're too scared to try and get there, for instance, if you want to become more confident, but you don't really know how, then just take any opportunity that could help you, because if you don't try anything, then you'll never get there.
Scott Jamieson: I'm hearing lots of amazing things about perseverance, and growth mindset, and challenging ourselves, and extending our comfort zone. I think that's all such great advice for aspiring leaders.
Scott Jamieson: Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience as a leader that I haven't asked the right question to allow you to share yet?
Mr Guy Hewson: I think you've asked all the right questions. Yes.
Scott Jamieson: Well, thank you.
Mr Guy Hewson: I also want to just say that, adding on to that previous question, a lot of students were scared of failure. Actually, one of my friends wanted to apply for the student ambassador role, but was afraid that she would get rejected. But I obviously, pushed her into doing it, because I told her that failure is
Mr Guy Hewson: the step to success. So, success does not come without failure, and essentially,
Mr Guy Hewson: I did get rejected at first, and so did a lot of the other students, such as Alessandra, and I would say that that failure is really the push that had to get me to develop my skills and my confidence in order to get me to this role.
Mr Guy Hewson: Right now, so… So rather, thinking of, failing as a negative thing, it shouldn't be thought like that. It should be thought as, oh, I failed, so what could I do next time to help me get better?
Mr Guy Hewson: I also think it's just been a really empowering experience to
Mr Guy Hewson: be able to help the new students that are feeling a bit nervous, because when I joined the school, I didn't actually know anyone, because I'd come from a different school, so if I saw something like that in one of the Year 6 students, I was really able to use my own
Mr Guy Hewson: experiences to help them maybe be a bit more confident when joining the school, so I think it's been a really incredible opportunity.
Mr Guy Hewson: I think failing is the best step to improve.
Mr Guy Hewson: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: I agree. I think we have to have those opportunities, but to fail in a safe space, where it's not high stakes, where we have an opportunity to try again, and I think a lot of students I talk to value that experience.
Scott Jamieson: And we don't often, in a high-pressure academic space, you guys are talking about getting into IGCSEs pretty soon, and there's spaces in our school, we don't have those spaces to make mistakes, but I think this is a great opportunity to have that…
Scott Jamieson: have and develop that growth mindset, and try something new. And I think this is such great advice, so thank you for sharing that.
Scott Jamieson: Claire, Tina, Jasmine, Brandon, Aria, and Alessandra, it's been such a great opportunity for me to have a chance to talk to you, and thank you so much for sharing your journey as student leaders, and this has been really inspiring, and I hope people who are listening to our podcast
Scott Jamieson: feel that same inspiration, and maybe feel that confidence to try something, to step out of their comfort zone, apply for a leadership position at their school, and follow in your steps to develop as young leaders. Thank you so much for sharing your stories.
Mr Guy Hewson: Thank you. Thank you.
Scott Jamieson: And… we're gonna turn the recorder off.
Mr Guy Hewson: He was a little fake at the end.