Ashburton College’s new head students are head girl and boy Millie Sullivan and Thomas Patterson (centre) with deputies Easterlin Faaimausili and Alex Riley. Photo Jonathan Leask Thomas Patterson and Millie Sullivan have been named as the new Ashburton College head students for 2021.

They were announced at the end of year Y11-12 prizegiving on Wednesday night with Patterson and Sullivan getting the top jobs and Alex Riley and Easterlin Faaimausili were named as the deputies.

At the start of the year both Patterson and Sullivan had considered putting their hands up for the roles.

“Running for the role was more on the cards than actually getting it,” Patterson said.

Sullivan said that from Year 9 she had only really considered running for house captain.

“At the start of this year I was still only looking at blue house captain until a teacher actually told me to put my name down for head student and that I realised I might have some potential for it.”

It went from afterthought to reality pretty quickly when Sullivan and Patterson were announced as the new head students.

They admitted it’s a daunting task.

“A lot of the work happens behind the scenes and even when you are running for it you don’t fully know what you are in for until you are thrown in the deep end.

“So it’s going to be pretty challenging.”

Over the year the 2020 leadership group – Henry Chapman and Poppy Kilworth and their deputies Kyle Cabangun and Maria Costas – faced probably one of the most challenging years dealing with the impacts of a global pandemic, principal Ross Preece said, but they handled the situation superbly.

“They have been outstanding, particularly during the Covid-19 lockdown,” Preece said.

“They produced a whole lot of social media content they started up to assist and support the students during the lockdown.

“It was entirely student led.”

Covid-19 has thrown down challenges to staff and students who are now preparing for exams after a whirlwind few months.

“This year it’s just been constantly going, go, go,” Sullivan said.

“Within the last two days of school I was still finishing off internals whereas normally, and ideally, you would be finished two weeks before you go on exam leave so you could use that time for studying with the teachers.”

For now the focus is on end of year exams before officially taking on the roles in the new year.

Sullivan said they will be having a meeting with the outgoing head students for a debrief on the roles.

They won’t set their agenda until the leadership camp in January, but the quartet already have ideas about the direction they want their leadership to take.

Patterson wants to focus on the school’s growing diversity.

“I personally want to look to involve the diversity because we are quite a diverse school and a lot of communities that make it up, and put those on display.

“Make sure that regardless of where you come from you belong in the school.”

Sullivan hopes to have the year group as leaders be a “friendly face around the school for the juniors”.

“I want us to all be those approachable people that they can come to with their problems.”

Faaimausili wants to work on breaking down the barriers between the year groups and Riley just wants to ensure they oversee a happy student body.

After the rigorous process, Preece said he was impressed with the incoming head students and was excited to see the direction they take.

By Jonathan Leask © The Ashburton Guardian - 13 November 2020