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Halogen National Young Leaders Conference

On Wednesday, 23 March the Primary school student leaders from Years 5 and 6 at both our Mt Ridley and Donnybrook campuses, along with some of the student senators in Secondary travelled to the Exhibition and Convention Center for the Halogen National Young Leaders Conference. The day began very early departing from school just after 7:30am in order to battle the city peak hour traffic, we arrived to take our seats joining over 2000 delegate students from across the state.

Each speaker had some wonderful stories with messages for the students to be inspired by and take away. A common message was the importance of acknowledging failures on the path to success. It was through mistakes and failures along the way that ultimately enabled resilience, determination and the opportunity to learn, all of which are required to reach our dreams and goals. Our first session had the speaker Lachlie Smart the World Record holder for the youngest pilot to fly solo around the world. He focused on his goal to inspire other young people to reach for their dreams and to use mistakes and failures to build resilience. His story of the work to carry out his dream and the actual flight was inspiring.

Our middle session had two speaker Guy Edmonds an author, producer and actor and Cate Campbell one of our Olympic Swimmers and the Australian Flag Barer at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Each of these speakers spoke about their journey on the path to success. They reminded us of the importance of staying determined and that dreams require sacrifice and choices along the way, as well as the importance of ensuring that your dream is your dream and that you are passionate about it. Our final speaker was the Australian cricketer, Damien Fleming who reminded students to find their niche, and to learn through the mistakes and failures that occurred on the path to success.

Overall, the day was fantastic, students were left reflecting on what they could do to achieve their goals and dreams, signatures were collected and students had the opportunity to meet and interact with other aspiring leaders of the future.

Sarah Shatford - Head of Student Wellbeing 3 - 6 (Mt Ridley)