Kindred Spirits Enterprises is proud to partner with Grey Street Primary School to create a supportive and inclusive environment, helping all students overcome educational barriers and thrive. Our collaboration fosters leadership, resilience and a sense of community among the students, as seen in their positive experiences and achievements.
Four year six students at Traralgon’s Grey Street Primary School are feeling upbeat about their roles as School Captains and about their education experience overall.
Noah Edgar, Briony Egan, Lucy Sedgwick and Jordy Stoiljkovic, who all turn 12 this year, are fully engaged in school life and feel they are also learning from their leadership positions within the student body.
Lucy said of the year so far, she has enjoyed “leading the school at assembly, representing the school on Anzac Day, which is really important, and getting to lead our school as a whole.”
Briony added, “We had an open day not long ago where we guided parents and next year’s preps around the school. We got to talk to them about the school, and we baby-sat the kids while their parents talked to the teachers.”
However, school captaincy is not always a serious responsibility, with some fun elements to the job. Noah, particularly, enjoyed his involvement in an Easter event.
“We did an egg hunt where we hid Easter eggs around the school and all the students went around and found them,” Noah said.
Likewise, Jordy has enjoyed the experiences mentioned by his co-captains. “It’s fun, but it also gets you ready for high school… talking to large audiences of people and taking an extra step toward that next level,” Jordy said.
Briony said that applying for the captaincy was a learning experience, even before attaining the role.
“We had to give speeches and, at first, it was very hard for me. I cried at the start of my speech but I went on and powered through… and I’m very proud of that. And I think it will help my public speaking during assembly,” Briony said.
At the fortnightly school assemblies, the four hand out awards for ‘Respect for Learning’ and ‘Respect for Others’, with two awards going to students in each classroom.
There are also awards decided by the teachers who oversee four specialist classes. Jordy explained, “there’s performing arts, like acting and dancing; visual art, so drawing and painting; a LOTE class, in this case, Chinese; and PE.”
PE is one specialist subject they are all rather keen on!
“It helps you with your physical activity – running around the school, cross country, sports and playing games,” Lucy said.
Noah added, “Sarah (the teacher) understands everyone’s capabilities so there’s different levels. And she will put you in groups with people you may not know, but with the same abilities, so it’s easier to learn more quickly.”
As well as being active in PE, Noah likes learning Chinese and Jordy gets a lot from the art classes.
“You can choose who you sit with in art and you can talk to them while doing it,” Jordy said.
As for their leadership aspirations, they each feel their experiences this year could help to open doors in high school and beyond. School captaincy is already providing some early skills, even before their eventual career paths become apparent.
“This role definitely helps me with public speaking and talking to people in different ways,” said Jordy. “It’s hard to know what we’ll do in the future, being 11, but we’ll see how high school goes.”
Kindred Spirits Enterprises recently partnered with Grey Street Primary School to roll out The Little Village Project. Disability and Inclusion Leading Teacher, Andrew Simpkins, says a number of students are already overcoming various learning barriers through the program.
