Student Leadership Council - a three-weekend online intensive for Grades 6–8 and Grades 9–12. Interactive Zoom breakouts, Socratic debate, and a digital council charter that shapes your school community.
Focus on identity, values, and personal leadership narrative development
Deep exploration of governance, systems thinking, and how decisions are made in groups
Heavy emphasis on real-world leadership pressure, debate, and critical thinking in breakout sessions
Students collaborate digitally to design and actively build a functioning Student Leadership Council
Strong experiential learning through case studies, virtual role plays, and external leaders
Ends with students presenting, defending ideas live, and taking ownership of leadership roles
Introduction to what leadership is through story, identity, and structured online reflection
Focus on self-awareness, values, communication, and active listening skills
Highly interactive learning using virtual games, challenges, and team activities
Builds confidence in speaking, collaboration, and basic decision-making in a digital setting
Introduces simple governance concepts in age-appropriate, visual ways
Culminates in students presenting ideas and experiencing early leadership roles on camera
Before any framework, students do the inner work - digital rivers of life, values, and leadership narrative. Governance lands on a person, even online.
Zoom calls reward active, specific contributions, not generic agreement. Socratic arguments with the materials are encouraged.
Charters, terms of reference, accountability, mandate vs. suggestion. Two case studies - a council that failed and one that didn't - are reviewed on shared Miro whiteboards.
Debates in breakouts. Live role-play calls on difficult situations. A school leadership guest panel joins the call to review students' proposals.
Every student must design and teach a governance concept online to a live audience of peers and outside teachers. If they can teach it, they understand it.
Charter signed digitally, roles claimed via online advocacy, group screenshot taken. This isn't a passive webinar - it's an active founding cohort.
Select a cohort, then open any weekend to see the session sequence and outline.
IN SESSION
Welcome and Intent
River of Life - Self Work
River of Life - Breakout Triads
Plenary: What Did We Hear?
Famous Leader Video and Socratic Discussion
Values - Depth Work
Governance: How Organisations Work
SATURDAY + SUNDAY · 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM EDT
Morning Check-In
Reverse Teaching: Students Teach
Video: Leadership Under Pressure
Strengths in Depth
Difficult Conversations Role Play
Running a Formal Virtual Meeting
Designing the Council Together
Final Check-In & Socratic Case
Council Charter Writing
Guest: School Leadership Panel
Student Presentations
Virtual Graduation & Charter Signing
Council Launch & Final Close
Our mentors are exceptional Harvard students who bring real-world experience and guidance to every project.
Sophomore at Harvard College studying Economics and Statistics. From San Francisco, she loves traveling, trying out different foods, and making new friends!
First-year at Harvard College, planning to concentrate in East Asian Studies and Government with a Secondary in Education. Former State President of the California Association of Student Councils, uplifting 3500+ students yearly. Currently involved with Harvard Consulting in Business and the Environment and the Asian Leadership Initiative.
Junior at Harvard studying Integrative Biology and Computer Science. Currently studying abroad at Oxford in the UK. Volunteers for legal advocacy groups, does research for rare autoimmune disorders, and loves to hike around the northeast.
Junior at Harvard concentrating in Government and Statistics, with a secondary in Astrophysics. Serves as a project manager on the Ethics Committee of Harvard HCS Tech for Social Good and is the current Deputy Director of Foreign Summits for the Harvard Undergraduate Foreign Policy Initiative.
Graduate of Harvard College, where she studied Applied Mathematics, Government, and Education. Focused on educational equity through leadership in Harvard Model Congress and worked in youth homelessness at the Y2Y Shelter. Currently works at Breaktime as a Richardson Fellow.
Real leadership work from Onward students, built and defended in front of mentors and judges.
I. Oikonomou
Ioannis chose global scarcity and world hunger as his central theme and maintained it consistently across all program components. His speech work was informed by studying the oratory styles of JFK and Barack Obama, and he participated in both rounds of the Veldra vs Akhara water negotiation simulation. His standout deliverable is a passion project website (scarcityproject.netlify.app) built using Claude AI, with all prompts authored by him - going beyond the standard brief. He has expressed intent to develop this further into an app using platforms such as Base44 or Claude.
Claude AI · Netlify
T. Malouf
Tracy chose war and conflict as her focus, motivated by its direct impact on her own family - a personal and honest foundation for her work. In the UN-style negotiation simulation, she and her partner took on mediator roles, working to keep debate calm and neutral, which she reflects built her confidence and leadership skills. Her passion project continued to explore conflict through the lens of past events. The personal conviction running through her submission is a clear strength.
Presentation · Storytelling
S. Bairoliya