Intro to Leadership or Student Council Middle High School Unit

Start your Leadership class or Student Council off on a successful year with this introductory unit filled with enough student-centered, get-them-thinking activities to use for 2-3 years before any repeats- great if students are in student government year after year!

Then, culminate student learning and growth with a campus-wide Kindness Project to kick off a positive year.

This unit kit comes in both print PDF and digital for Google Slides!

Greatness is maximizing all group members' strengths to cultivate a strong working relationship.

Employers often say as important as the hard skills of coding innovative websites, cutting amazing hair, or designing safer cars are the soft skills of communicating, leading, and collaborating.

Don’t let this year start down that same old path of poster making and pep assemblies.

Leave the superficial WHAT of student government behind for a thoughtful, collaborative, community-building set of introduction activities that will have your students answering, “WHY do we want to lead and HOW can we do some great things together?” within a couple of weeks.

The beauty of this unit is your freedom to mix-and-match- each activity is self-contained, allowing for complete customization into a high-energy 2- to 4-week course introduction. Pick the activities that make sense for this year with these kids!

Even better, there are enough activities to last you 2 to 3 years without repeating, in case students are in Leadership or Student Council back-to-back years! Or save a few activities for later in the year when students need a little re-boost or refresher.

Included in this complete unit:

Teacher Resources

• Unit-at-a-Glance sheet to give you a broad overview
• 11 pages of Lesson Plans for each activity, from the daily goal to debriefing questions
• Answer Keys with suggested responses to guide student thinking

5 Types of Activities (23 in all!) - all easily doable in one class period or less

• Introductions build familiarity and trust within the group with 5 icebreakers
• Defining Leadership brainstorm and discuss the meaning of leadership in 4 different ways
• School Knowledge & Climate examine the ins-and-outs of the school’s current state through 4 exercises
• Goal Setting brainstorm and establish agreed-upon wishes and mission statements for the year with 5 methods
• Personal Inventories understand strengths and values using 5 different assessments

Culminating Kindness Project

• An open-ended, student-directed project that builds off the forming trust, emerging understanding of leadership, the goals that have been set, and now known personality characteristics of the group
• Includes everything needed to brainstorm, plan, andexecute a kindness-spreading gesture

Additional Resources

• 40-slide fully editable Supplemental PowerPoint with student directions
• Both PDF & Google Slides versions of student sheets

What Other Leadership Teachers are Saying

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This, along with the Leadership Activities and Skills Bundle, saved me when I found out about a new leadership class I would be teaching! I had only a few weeks to prepare. The resource was easy to use, well-designed, and engaging. Thank you! - Jill

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a GREAT resource for a Leadership or Student Council class. My students LOVED it!! It made them think about themselves and the school in ways they never had before. We were able to set some pretty lofty, but achievable goals for this year with the material in this assignment. Prompted great discussion that was DEEP. - fellow TPT seller

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I loved this resource! It has so many different activities and they are organized very nicely. It is something that I can use in many different scenarios in the classroom and in other organizations I'm involved in. - Robin

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I have been struggling with getting my student council to step up and lead. This resource was truly helpful and inspirational to me. Now I feel like I have the ability and the tools to help them. - Teresa

Want more Leadership & Student Council projects?

Complete List of Leadership & Student Council Resources

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This listing is for one license for regular, non-commercial classroom use by a single teacher only. Commercial use like online teaching (ex. Outschool) or sharing with other teachers (ex. shared drive, in a Facebook group, in a professional development training) is strictly prohibited.

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