House Captain Training

House Captain Training This week, the House Captains had the opportunity to develop their student leadership skills by taking part in the first BIS HCMC House Captain Training Morning.

This week, the House Captains had the opportunity to develop their student leadership skills by taking part in the first BIS HCMC House Captain Training Morning.

This event brought together the Sixth Form Heads of House and the house captains from the lower school into a collaborative and supportive working environment where students could help advance the house system within BIS. In addition to this, we also had the pleasure of being accompanied by the Year 6 House Captains who made their way across from the Junior Campus for the first 2 sessions of the training morning.

All students participated amazingly in all of the activities. The morning started with teambuilding tasks organised by Ms Carter, one such task was a mini house competition in constructing the tallest tower from spaghetti, marshmallows, wool and tape. A competition that was narrowly won by Hue.

The House Captains also gained valuable skills in the communication and motivation workshop led by Ms Binnington and Mr Quarrington. This focused on how we can motivate both students and teachers to participate in house events and how we can communicate effectively through a variety of different media; such as posters, emails, presentations and social media.

After we said goodbye to the Year 6 students, the secondary house captains completed a workshop looking at the more practical elements of their leadership positions. In this final section of the morning, Mr Jones delivered an informative session looking at writing articles about house events, updating the house boards and leading house assemblies.

Without a doubt, the most positive aspect of the day was the cross-campus collaboration between the secondary and Year 6 House Captains. It was particularly amazing to see how the Year 6 students reacted to the event, any trepidation that I had that they might be nervous or find it overwhelming working with students much older than them quickly vanished when they arrived super keen and excited. Indeed, they often ended up leading the conversations! The secondary students also acted as great role models. It was truly great to see.

“The morning was not only a huge amount of fun but helped the Year 6 house captains to develop their already burgeoning skills as leaders. They all expressed how enjoyable it was and they are looking forward to the next time they can work alongside the Secondary house captains.

All of the children were enthusiastic, thoughtful, confident, energetic and motivated, demonstrating just why they are house captains. We would like to thank Mr Elliott for inviting us to join in the activities.” – Ms Deborah Spencer, Year 6 Leader

On behalf of the Heads of House, I would like to thank all of the students and staff involved with helping out during the session, with particular thanks going to Ms Binnington and Ms Deborah for their support in creating this hugely successful cross-campus event.

Stuart Elliott, Head of Saigon House and Deborah Spencer, Year 6 Leader