How Collaboration Amongst Grade Levels Can Promote Leadership Opportunities

The following article was written by Meghan Arnold, MYP English & Humanities Teacher.

At Riverstone, there are many advantages that make our school truly unique. Some examples of these advantages include our smaller class sizes, opportunities to collaborate with Preschool–Grade 12, and our Wednesday programming. Recently, our Middle School program utilized each of these advantages during our National History Day (NHD) themed Wednesday.

If you aren’t familiar with NHD, it is an annual, project-based contest for students around the world to compete in. Each year, NHD introduces a new theme, students pick a topic that aligns with that theme, they research it, then they put together a unique project that educates their audience about their chosen topic. The National History Day theme this year is Turning Points In History. 

In previous years, Riverstone students began working on their NHD projects in January. However, for this year’s Grade 8 students, we decided to have them start their projects in October and submit them by the end of the semester. By structuring NHD this way for our Grade 8 students, they are now able to serve as mentors for our Grade 6 and 7 students when they begin their NHD projects in January. During this recent NHD themed Wednesday activity, the mentorship process was put into action.

In the morning, Grade 8 students created a Google slide presentation where they addressed their NHD topic, their research question, their thesis statement, and the project format they chose to create for their topic. This Google slide presentation was completed while Grade 6 and 7 students learned about the National History Day theme this year. Once all three grade levels completed their roles in this collaborative effort, we all joined forces!

The entire Middle School was split up into small groups. Each group had two Grade 8 students, two Grade 7 students, and two Grade 6 students. In these small groups, Grade 8 students presented their slides and explained their process in picking a topic they would enjoy researching and creating a project for. They also explained how important it is to pick a project format that aligns with your topic idea. During this time, our younger students had the chance to ask the Grade 8 students for advice and guidance before they begin their projects in January. 

Moving forward, our early Middle School students will go into January with an idea of what topic they would like to research and what format they will produce their project in. Furthermore, Grade 6 and 7 students will know how many resources and support systems they have at the school in order to complete their projects with absolute certainty and confidence.

Through this collaborative effort amongst grade levels at Riverstone, we are able to truly represent one of our five pillars, Leadership By Example. This pillar’s purpose is to value leadership and promote students’ development into leaders.

At Riverstone, students have many opportunities to grow into strong, motivating, and self assured leaders. These students can inspire those around them to follow in their footsteps. By utilizing these opportunities for students to practice roles in leadership, we can create an incentive amongst our students that will encourage them to continue to lead others outside of Riverstone’s walls. At Riverstone, our students know how impactful their actions and words are. By using their voices to guide others, we will soon see a significant and positive change in our world for many years to come.