The Kids Leading Social Change student leadership camp builds confidence, resilience and responsibility and turns your students into empowered, inspiring leaders.

The program is suitable for up to 30 students from the same school or as a collaboration between several schools. For teachers, it also provides two days of professional development on practical leadership methods. At the end of camp, participating teachers receive PD certificate with their credit hours (depending on their length of stay in camp).

The student leadership camp is run by Ronit Baras, together with a team of volunteers and teachers (all Blue Card holders) over two days, allowing students to take part in an experience that is out of school hours, including sleeping away from home. It introduces students to challenges that increase in complexity and duration and provides them with practical tools to meet them.

In the Kids Today Leaders Tomorrow I learned that we should believe in ourselves, to participate and try to do the best we can do.
Joshua Carlyle , Year 6 student, Upper MT Gravatt State School, QLD, 2010, Australia

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Contents

What students learn from the student leadership camp

Self awareness – Student leaders learn to recognise and monitor their own motivation and values and to accept and leverage their uniqueness.
Positive mindset – Student leaders learn the character traits of the leader, the importance of taking calculated risks and how persistence, resilience and acceptance affect their performance in a positive way.
The importance of role models – Student leaders learn the challenges of leaders as public figures and how to set an example for others.
Developing social skills for better leadership – The student leadership camp introduces and demonstrates the 15 social skills of the leader and the importance of developing these social skills in the participants’ leadership role.
Empowering beliefs – Student leaders learn to adopt empowering beliefs that will lead them towards being successful, emphatic and confident leaders.
Communication skills – Student leaders learn the power of language in communication and relationships. They learn to give and receive a feedback in a productive and empowering way and also given conversation tools to avoid conflict and enhance their group relationships.
Courage and creativity – Student leaders learn the connection between courage and creativity. They discover the importance of developing confidence in order to think outside the box, a very important skill on their leadership journey
Time management skills– At the student leadership camp, participants learn to estimate the time required to complete a task and improve their planning and organisation skills.
Social activism and making difference- Student leaders learn about diversity, assumptions, judgment, discrimination, inclusion, exclusion, bullying and the power of the bystanders. They learn the difference between fairness, justice and equality.
Importance of support structure – Student leaders understand the importance of their relationships with their families and how those relationships influence their leadership style and success.
Public speaking skills – The student leadership camp provides participants the opportunity to learn how to to construct an idea and present it in a confident, powerful and convincing way. They practice the most effective public speaking techniques and gain tools to express themselves is a very assertive and efficient way.

Emotional growth

During the camp, students participate in a range of enjoyable and challenging activities together with other students.

As part of the camp activities, students are asked to complete assignments with time pressure to develop decision making skills. They explore creativity and uniqueness as a leadership tool as well as examine their own personal values and debate the idea of power. They are required to brainstorm, plan in a team environment, develop flexibility and adjust to the different needs of their team members.

They learn to collaborate, build rapport and public speaking skills and they also receive letters of support from their parents, as a surprise, to help understand the importance of support structure. This is a very emotional and life changing experience for the students and for their parents.

Students leave the two days resilient, assertive and confident to make a difference in the world around them. Their principals, teachers and parents report enormous positive shift in their attitude towards themselves and those around them.

The most meaningful thing in camp for me was making new friends and the letter I have received from my mother. My confidence level before camp was 50% and after camp it is 80%. Thank you!
Samya, School Captain, Seville Road State School, QLD, 2014 Leadership Camp

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Logistics and participant selection

The student leadership camp runs for two days during school term on school premises. Schools can benefit from including any of the following groups of students:

Student leadership team
Entire class or selected students from a grade level, e.g. all the girls in Year 6
Selected students needing to develop leadership abilities, e.g. sports captains
Representatives from several schools in a “sister-school” project

Our records show that students who attended the leadership camp after attending the Student Leadership Skills Training Day: Kids Today, Leaders Tomorrow had an advantage over their peers who only attended one of these programs and assumed more responsible positions at their school.

Information for parents

Once the school or a group of schools book a student leadership camp, parents receive information pack detailing every aspect of camp, including permissions, health and dietary requirements. In this information pack, parents will be aware of the plan, objectives, get clear instructions on writing a support letter they need to provide and what to expect once the kids get home.

Parents are also able to ask questions and direct them to the team before and after the camp.

Thank you Ronit for a fantastic experience you gave our son… He came home tired but could not go to sleep. He has changed a lot in just two day. I didn’t think it was possible… Thank you for giving us the opportunity to write him a letter. His letter back to us was kind and loving. Thank you very much!
M.P, mother, Leadership Camp, 2013

All students receive the student leadership camp manual printed by the school. High school students also receive a FREE copy of the inspiring book Be Special Be Yourself for Teenagers by Ronit Baras (valued at $24.95) for each participant.

This book deals with uniqueness and acceptance. This is a great tool for parents to bridge the generation gap and is a recommended read both for parents and teachers to start the conversation on supporting teens in their quest for independent.

Student leaders also receive special quote cards to be used as reminder of values.

Selected students in camp receive “Most Stretched award”, “Goodness and Kindness award” and “Special Awards”.

Each student leader receives a certificate of completion sent to school up to two weeks after the workshop.

Please note: Escorting teachers receive a professional development certificate with their credit hours based on the number of hours they attend in camp.

Click here for more testimonials on our leadership programs, including the student leadership camp Kids Leading Social Change.

More Information

Ronit Baras – The Leadership Coach

Ronit Baras is an educator, life coach, author, journalist and justice of peace. She has been using Emotional Intelligence techniques for 38 years with children of all ages in several countries (USA, Israel, Thailand, Singapore & Australia). She has developed a number of special programs, which have been hugely successful.

Ronit is currently teaching at the University of Queensland, training for institute of public administrators (IPAA) Queensland. She is the State Director of Together for Humanity Foundation and was the school program director of the Global Learning Centre.

She has conducted many successful emotional intelligence programs and student leadership programs in Australia and overseas.

Ronit is an experienced and powerful presenter, delivering inspiring messages of love, respect, acceptance and determination to the people who attend her programs.

Ronit has helped thousands of students discover their strength and uniqueness and leverage them to succeed in school and life. She has been teaching, coaching, presenting and writing over 38 years. Her writing has been published in educational magazines around Australia.

Her parenting blog, “Family Matters”, is a great resource for thousands of parents and teachers with over 1500 articles on family life, parenting, personal growth and education and attracts 50,000 readers each month.

Research shows that investing in emotional intelligence and equipping student leaders with social and emotional management skills yields the best results. Ronit strongly believes that leadership is not a position but a state of mind that requires self-awareness, confidence, uniqueness, a positive mindset, courage, creativity and good social skills and that leaders are not born but made.

“It is our goal as educators to awaken the passionate leader within”, she says.