What is good leadership? What makes a good leader? These are the questions students at STA were asking themselves in the lead up to the first ever school captain elections last week.

The students at STA had some great ideas about what a good leader does. Each class wrote down and discussed some ideas about leadership. Below are some examples of what STA students think leaders should do.

A leader should:

• help the small kids
• follow the school rules
• share ideas
• be kind and friendly
• be honest
• be active at school

Students in Standard 3,4 and 5 were all able to try out to become a Steven Tito Academy school captain for 2015. Each student who wanted to become captain had to give a speech in front of the whole school. They had to tell all the students why they wanted to be captain and why they think they would be a good captain.

All the students who spoke did a great job, even though they were very nervous. They all got a big cheer at the end of their speeches. After they spoke, all students in Standard 1-5 voted for one girl and one boy who they wanted to be school captain for 2015.

 Madam Lauren counted all the votes to see who the STA students chose as their student leaders. All the candidates had to wait a whole week until we announced the school captains and vice captains at assembly the next week. On Monday four students were very happy to hear their names announced as the new school captains.

Congratulations Asuaka (Boy Captain), Alyat (Girl Captain), Justis (Boy Vice-Captain) and Mariam (Girl Vice-Captain)!

Our captains will have many jobs to do including presenting the Student of the Week winners each Monday and showing visitors around our school. All the students, even those who tried out to be captains, were so happy for Asuaka, Alyat, Justis and Mariam and congratulated them.

We are so proud of all the students at STA for being such great leaders and role models.

Questions:

1. What do you think a good leader does? Make a list.

2. Imagine you are trying out to be a school captain. Write a speech that you would present to the school.

3. What would be a good way to count the votes to decide who should be school captain?

4. Why do you think the teachers at STA let the students choose the school captains?

5. What do these words mean: candidate, election, speech?

Lesson Ideas

1. Run a mock or real election in your class. Have students try out to be class captain, president of the country or even be voted the best food (each student can pretend to be a food and get voted as most healthy, most delicious after presending their persuasive speeches)!

2. List leaders that students know in the community and/or throughout the world. Research a community or world leader from the past or present and create a presentation or written project on him or her.

3. Find different quotes about leadership. Discuss what each quote means and whether they think the quote is accurate or not.

4. Research Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere and talk to the students about him. He was the first Tanzanian President after Tanzania achieved independence in 1961. Create a Venn diagram comparing Mwalimu Nyerere to the first President/Prime Minister of your country.

5. Assist students to create individual or a whole class acrostic poem with the word LEADERSHIP.

6. Students could write a narrative entitled 'School Captain for a Day'. It could be humourous, dramatic etc...