We are coming to the end of the Leading the Way Student Leadership Workshops, a pilot program that has empowered students to create positive physical activity changes in their school and communities. Since the first workshop piloted on October 18, 2010, over 45 schools across Ontario and Saskatchewan have participated in this program.

The workshops encourage young people to learn how to successfully plan, organize and implement their own physical activity initiatives. By providing the appropriate training and tools, youth develop the skills to become independent, positive leaders who are able to lead programs with minimal assistance from adult facilitators.

The workshops focused on three specific groups, senior elementary and secondary and post-secondary.  At the conclusion of the senior elementary workshop, students will have planned five days worth of physical activities to run during lunch and recess. These activities can be run for an entire week or spread out throughout a month. For secondary students, at the end of their workshop they will have planned a short intramural program to run at their school. The intramural program can be run every day for a week or can be spread throughout a month. At the conclusion of the post-secondary workshop, students will have planned a one-day special event related to physical activity.

There have been some incredible, positive, outcomes from the workshops. At St. Thomas Aquinas High school in Russell, Ontario, students created “Fun Fit Fridays,” an after-school program where students could choose to participate in either a sports activity or fitness activity. Heading into the workshop, students wanted to create a structured activity program that offered a wide variety of activities for all students to participate in.

There’s a sport activity and a fitness activity that run concurrently, with sports being held in the gym and fitness taking place in the schools atrium.  Currently, sports activities have included floor hockey and basketball and fitness activities have included circuit training and yoga.

The best thing to have come out of the workshop for the St. Thomas Aquinas students is their ownership of the program. Following the conclusion of their workshop, the participants went on Facebook and created a group page about “Fun Fit Fridays” for fellow St. Thomas Aquinas students. Overnight, more than 80 students had joined the group. On this page students discuss what activities they would like to see take place at the next “Fun Fit Friday” and register for the upcoming activities. This group is run solely by the students, with no moderation or encouragement by the school staff.

As a Leading the Way Student Leadership Workshop facilitator, Lindsay Cline has seen firsthand the positive impacts that this initiative has had on students. She notes that one of the key impacts she has seen with the workshops is how they influence the quieter students’ behaviours by drawing them out of their shell. More often then not, she says that she has noticed students that started off the workshop as being the quieter ones, normally end up being the one’s to charge over planning the group activities.

In addition, she notes that after attending the workshop, the students seem eager to implement the activities they have spent time on planning with their peers. The students appear to come out of the workshops with a sense of confidence in their ability to be leaders within their school. Furthermore, she sees the workshops as eliminating any misconceptions that students have that designing physical activity initiatives are beyond their capabilities: a definite positive.

The workshops are wrapping up this month. Upon completion, we will be finalizing materials that schools can use to host their own Leading the Way Student Leadership Workshop programs.

If you’ve had a student leadership workshop take place, or a similar program, we would love to hear about your experience and the impact it had on your students.