Student Committee at Scotch Oakburn College

Posted: 06 August 2018

Scotch Oakburn

School: 

Scotch Oakburn College, Tasmania, Australia

Number of students on the committee:

All our senior students involved in Round Square projects at Scotch Oakburn are considered part of the committee and are led by two co-chairs. The number of people involved varies depending on the current project. There are approximately 30 active senior students who are regularly involved in our school Round Square initiatives.

The leadership structure of the group:

Two co-chairs – a male and female. These two people are part of the Student Executive of the college and are in Year 12 (final school year).

How often does the committee meet:

Regular meetings are held once a week and extraordinary meetings are held more often, as required, depending on what events/projects are current.

What is the core function of the committee?:

Our senior Round Square students help to:

How does the committee communicate with the wider student body/school:

Middle and Senior School assemblies, Junior school campus visits, attending weekly Round Square meetings in Middle School.

Recent initiative:

Brainwaves – Your Mind Does Matter: A Mental Health Youth Forum

A recent initiative undertaken by the Student Committee at Scotch Oakburn College in Tasmania, Australia sought to bring into focus issues around mental health in the greater Launceston Community, for the benefit of secondary students from a wide range of schools. This initiative is now in its second year and it is planned that it will be an annual event held in collaboration with the Launceston City Mission.

Tasmania’s suicide rate is now at the highest in the country, with 45 in every 100,000 people taking their own life,” explains Sophie Williams, 2017 Round Square Chairperson, “Despite overall improvements for the rest of the country, Tasmania has gone backwards. Due to this, we decided to work alongside the Launceston City Mission and the Youth Advisory Council of the Launceston City Council”.

Scotch Oakburn’s approach involved hosting this event to maximise the involvement of both the school community and the wider community. With a focus on serving the local community through acts of kindness, the aim of this event was to build relationships with members of the local community, to make them feel valued.

The Student Committee started by writing to their local council to request support for their initiative, who were more than happy to do so. “Scotch Oakburn College has an exemplary history of working with the community in empowering ways. This is evidenced through their continual commitment to the Round Square association of schools” says Claudia Garwood, Youth Development Officer from the City of Launceston. “I commend students of Scotch Oakburn College on their initiative.

On the 3rd of April 2017, in front of the whole school community, Principal Andy Muller and CEO of City Mission, David Brown signed a memorandum of understanding.

A team from Scotch Oakburn College including senior Round Square students and staff, and a team from The City Mission, met on a regular basis over a ten week period, to orchestrate the Mental Health Youth Forum for students aged 15-19 years old.

Meetings progressed from working out the aims of the group, through to branding, finding speakers, the structure of the actual day and sourcing delegates. “Meetings were effective in that we had agenda’s, a different chair for each meeting and would have minutes published after the meeting,” explains David Hodson, co-chair from 2017. “This was done so all members knew exactly what they needed to do. Leaving the day to be completely prepared for in a thoroughly thought out structure and conducted without any major hiccups.

Students set out to raise additional funds to supplement the money donated by Round Square, for their Anniversary Challenge. The fundraising events were two-fold, they offered a fun opportunity to generate much needed cash and to raise awareness for their campaign and recruit fellow students to lend a helping hand.

On Thursday 6th April 2017 Sophie Williams and David Hodson, the co-chairs of Round Square for 2017, hosted this forum at The City Mission for 50 young people from nine Northern Tasmanian schools and colleges. Three workshops were conducted during the day-long forum, the first two being based around two outstanding keynote speakers.

Mitch McPherson from Speak Up, Stay ChatTY discussed his own personal journey focusing on Youth Suicide and the organisation that he started after his younger brother Ty took his own life in 2013. Zac Lockhart addressed issues around youth homelessness, also being able to speak about this sensitive topic from a personal perspective.

The forum was led by young people, for young people and it is a credit to our young Round Square leaders that they were able to provide this initiative, under the Round Square banner. This was an ideal opportunity for a real community partnership in the spirit of Round Square,” says Stuart Walls, Round Square Rep.

With the understand that things can’t change overnight, we are not planning to stop here,” reflects Sophie “Our next steps were discovered in the final session of the youth forum that was dedicated to school groups creating plans for what they are going to do next.

But in the end, we all came away with the same idea, to improve the mental wellbeing of the youth in Launceston,” says David “We left the room not as school groups but as one big group, leading the fight against mental illness. This is only the first step, but we now know that this fight is being fought not just at our school but with like-minded schools in the northern part of Tasmania.

Back to all educational insights