A central goal at YCIS Chongqing is to develop leadership, collaboration and service skills amongst all of our students. This goal is reflected through all of our programs, and the most pleasing and apparent outcome of these focuses is many and varied student leadership groups that operate on our campus. The theme of our last whole-school assembly was recognising student leadership, and we were all taken aback by the sheer number of students involved in leadership at our school and the great work they have completed so far this year as well as the exciting plans they have for the new semester.

We have student leadership groups which include our Primary and Secondary Student Councils as well as groups that are focused on specific passions and goals of our school such as Athletics and Sustainability. Our leadership groups are not just reserved for senior students; some of our bigger teams such as the Primary Play Leaders include members from a range of different Primary year levels. A pleasing theme that has been enhanced this year is the collaboration between Primary and Secondary and this is reinforced by some of our leadership teams, including our recently elected House Captains, having representatives from the whole school. Most impressive are some of the teams, such as our Student Tech Team, being 100% student developed and led – we are really proud of groups such as this as it shows the capacity of our students to truly lead and serve.

A message that was shared at the assembly was that leadership is a skill that everyone can practice and we encourage all students to challenge themselves to get involved. As the assembly showed, there are great number of groups that students can join and we are always on the look out for new causes and initiatives that can be supported through student leadership at YCIS Chongqing.