Learning To Lead – Jennifer Oaten
Yesterday, our Executive Leaders phoned home from my office. Each had just been told she would be part of the 2027 Student Leadership Council, and, one by one, they stepped aside to ring a parent with the news. Some were composed. Most were not. There were tears, and long pauses, and a few who could barely get the words out. What struck me was not the excitement, though there was plenty of it. It was that the first thing each girl wanted to do was tell the people who had shaped her.
Announcing our Student Leadership Council for the coming year is a moment the College marks with real pride. The announcement, the photographs and the badges are the visible part of something that has been forming quietly for years. This articele is about the part that is harder to see.
What Leadership Really Asks
Leadership is easy to picture as a title. A Head Girl, a House Captain, a Portfolio Captain. The reality is less about the position and more about what a young woman learns once she holds it.
The first lesson is to speak when she would rather stay quiet. Many of the girls who put themselves forward this year are not the loudest students in the room. They prepared speeches, sat in interviews and stood in front of their peers knowing they might not be chosen. We sometimes assume leaders are simply born confident. They are not. I have watched enough students grow into these roles to believe that confidence is built rather than given.
There is a quieter lesson in it, too. A leader represents the whole community, including students who voted for someone else and students she may not know well. Learning to act for others rather than for herself stays with a young woman long after school. So does the ordinary side of the work. Most of what our student leaders do will never be photographed. It is the early start to set up an event, the younger student who needs including, the meeting that runs long. Leadership at its best is consistent rather than dramatic, and our girls learn this by living it.
Leadership Beyond the Badge
I also want to speak to the many families whose daughters are not on the Council this year, because leadership at Santa Maria has never belonged only to those who hold a title. It belongs to the student who welcomes a new girl to her group. It belongs to the girl who keeps her training squad going through a wet winter, the one who runs a lunchtime club, the one her friends turn to when something is wrong. We see this every day, in every year group.
What the Research Tells Us
An Australian study led by Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons at the University of Queensland, Hands Up for Gender Equality, surveyed more than 10,000 students in Years 7 to 11 across the state’s leading girls’ and boys’ schools. It found that girls educated in a single-sex environment were just as self-confident as boys, with no gender difference in the confidence that matters so much for work and life beyond school.
The research points to something important. That gap in confidence is not something girls are born with. It develops in response to the environment around them. The same study found that taking part in leadership roles and leadership development was one of the three activities most strongly linked to a girl’s self-confidence.
Girls step forward when they are given real responsibility, when they see other young women leading and when the adults around them expect them to contribute. This is why we build so many small chances to lead into College life, from Year 5 through to Year 12.
The Part Families Play
There is something families can do here that schools cannot do alone. Parents cannot hand a daughter confidence, but they can build the conditions in which it grows. Much of what a girl comes to believe about herself as a leader is formed at home, long before she holds any formal role.
Some practical ways families can encourage leadership at home include:
- Give her real responsibility. Let her take charge of something that genuinely matters, whether that is planning a family event, managing part of the weekly shop or looking after a younger sibling for an afternoon. Responsibility she cannot hand back teaches her more than praise ever will.
- Notice the small acts and name them. When your daughter organises, includes someone, speaks up for a friend or takes something on without being asked, tell her you saw it. She may not think of any of this as leadership until you name it as such.
- Encourage her to participate in activities where she can practise. Sport, music, clubs, faith communities and volunteering all give young people the chance to lead, to contribute and to find their voice. A girl who runs a training drill or leads a group project is practising the very things a formal role will later ask of her.
None of this depends on a title. The belief that she has something to offer, and the habit of stepping forward to offer it, is built at the kitchen table as much as anywhere at school.
To our 2027 Student Leadership Council, congratulations. You have taken a brave first step, and the year ahead will teach you more about yourselves than any speech or interview could. To every other student at Santa Maria, leadership was never reserved for the few. It is something you can choose, quietly and daily, wherever you are.
- 2027 Student Leadership Council, family support for leadership, Featured, girls confidence, Girls leadership development, leadership opportunities, Santa Maria College leadership, single-sex girls education, Student Leadership
Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.
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