When a student leaves WAB, what are the key skills, knowledge, and characteristics they should possess that will guide them into the future?

It’s this question that is leading the development of WAB’s new strategic plan — what we’re calling Portraits of WAB Alumni. While all international schools have strategic plans that guide direct their academic and experiential efforts, WAB decided to act on its commitment to putting students at the center of everything we do by empowering our students to direct the process of creating the plan that will impact them most.

On this week's episode of The WAB Podcast, two students who are leading the initiative have a conversation with WAB’s Head of School, Dr. Marta Medved Krajnovic, about the development process and what they hope to get out of it.

“It felt like WAB is not just saying that they put students first, but they are showing it,” said Grade 11 student Aria C., who is part of the team of students leading development workshops. “Having been at WAB my whole life, I want to see the school do its best. Because Generation Z has such a strong voice, we were able to bring out some things that other stakeholders weren’t able to.”

WAB worked with students and trained them to host sessions with parents, students, teachers, staff, and alumni to help ensure all stakeholders’ voices were considered in the process.

Grade 6 student Alex L. has led workshops with his peers in the Middle School and with parents.

“It’s important that people share their opinions, that they speak out, because that’s where everything comes together,” Alex said. “Once people got comfortable and were talking to each other and understood what we were asking them to do, they opened up a little and we were able to understand what they thought.  We want to know what they think so we can help them.”

Dr Marta Medved Krajonvic said WAB’s school community will benefit in several ways from putting students in charge of the strategic plan development. Marta also co-wrote an article on the topic of leveraging student voice with WAB's Director of Innovation for Learning and Teaching in the International School Magazine.

“We will see what our community thinks about WAB’s main direction. We will see what people think we should stop doing, start doing, or continue doing,” Marta said, adding, “How students are thinking about the world can help us learn a lot, but through this process we are also helping students develop leadership skills.”

Tune into their full conversation and find more innovative learning stories like this on The WAB Podcast. You can also search 'The WAB Podcast' on your preferred podcast platform.