When Students Take the Lead

When families visit a school for the first time, they aren’t just looking for information. They want to picture what their child’s life might look like there. They want to understand what it feels like to belong. 

At this year’s TAS Open Houses, Grade 5 Student Ambassadors helped families do just that. 

After hearing from Michael O’Neill, Director of Admissions, and our three school principals, prospective families joined a fifth-grade student and a faculty member for a tour of campus. The students showed families the spaces their children might one day know as their own, from classrooms and libraries to playgrounds, gyms, and cafeterias. 

But the students weren’t simply following predetermined script.  

They made the tours their own. 

“This is my favorite spot to read in the library. I love to read adventure books in my cozy corner,” Natelie M., one of the fifth-grade guides, told a group of parents as she walked through the Lower School Library. 

Other students pointed out their favorite places to work on stories they were writing, showed families artwork they loved, or told them about their favorite “dumpling day” in the cafeteria. 

For prospective families, the experience offered something a presentation alone could not: a chance to see TAS through the eyes of an actual student. 

“Nothing showcases the student experience better than the actual students who are at the heart of it,” Mr. O’Neill said when asked why students were part of the Open House tours. 

Families could ask questions about daily life at TAS and hear directly from someone who was navigating the same hallways, learning in the same classrooms, and building relationships across the campus. 

But for the fifth graders, the experience was about more than showing people where things are. 

They were trusted to lead. 

That meant deciding what was worth pointing out, answering questions, navigating conversations with adults, and speaking with confidence about their own experiences. Their perspective wasn’t an add-on to the tour. 

It was the tour. 

Riley L. reflected on what she loves about coming to school: “I feel really excited to learn because I know my teachers will help me and it’s okay when I make mistakes. It’s also the best because everyone gets to be friends with each other.” 

For these prospective families, our fifth graders became a window into what it means to experience TAS as a student. For the students themselves, they had something real to own. 

That distinction reflects one of our core beliefs at TAS: student voice becomes meaningful when students have authentic opportunities to use it. 

Leadership isn’t developed simply by talking about confidence, communication, or responsibility. Students need opportunities to practice those skills in situations that matter, to make decisions, take responsibility, communicate their ideas, and recognize that what they have to say can make a difference. 

 

The Open House tours offered exactly that kind of opportunity. 

And opportunities like these don’t stop in Grade 5. 

Across TAS, students are given opportunities to take an idea, interest, or responsibility and turn it into something real. 

Just look at the Club Fair in the Upper School. 

In the weeks leading up to the Club Fair, students were creating and organizing new clubs, refining existing ones, and thinking carefully about what they wanted their clubs to be. They had to decide what they cared about, how they wanted to focus that interest, and what they could offer their peers. 

The result was a remarkably diverse collection of student-led communities. 

There was the Orphanage Club, where students tutor children at a nearby orphanage and build meaningful relationships. The Period Project worked to ensure sanitary items were readily available in all bathrooms. Rise Up created space for conversations about women’s stories and rights, alongside a Rise Up Bake-Off. 

Students were leading the Garden Club, Soccer Club, Spanish Society, Band Club, Mandarin Club, Robotics Club, Latin Club, Philosophy Club, and many more. 

Then came the club fair itself, when students shared those ideas with the wider Upper School community and invited their peers to join. 

It was more than an afternoon of tables and sign-ups. Students had to communicate what mattered to them, explain their ideas, answer questions, and make a case for why others might want to be part of what they were building. 

The fifth graders leading prospective families through campus and Upper School students building communities around their interests may seem like very different examples. 

But the underlying idea is the same. 

Leadership does not always begin with a title. 

Sometimes it begins with being willing to speak up about something you care about, make a decision, take responsibility for it, and communicate your ideas with confidence. 

And that starts early. 

A fifth grader doesn’t need to wait until Upper School, or until they hold a formal leadership position, to learn that their voice matters. They can learn it by standing in front of a group of adults and confidently sharing the places at school that mean something to them. 

They can learn it by answering an unexpected question, deciding where to go next, or explaining why a particular part of their school experience matters. 

They can learn that their perspective is worth listening to. 

And for the students leading the way, the experience reinforces something just as important: their voices have value, and TAS trusts them to use those voices. 

Whether they are leading prospective families through campus, building a club around something they care about, or finding another way to shape their community, TAS students are given opportunities to step forward and make their mark. 

They aren’t waiting to become leaders until they enter “the real world.” 

They are learning to lead now, using their voices, taking responsibility, pursuing what matters to them, and turning ideas into action and impact.