Jodi’s passion, enthusiasm, and commitment to personal development through fostering a growth mindset and service to others, has made her a powerhouse of student voice at Willunga High School in Adelaide. The year 11 student has created a project which ‘aims to bring Growth Mindset workshops into schools and create more awareness on the importance of a Growth Mindset in teaching and learning styles’. She says that providing these workshops ‘for staff, teachers and students creates a positive environment and promotes improvement in students’ work efforts and outlook on learning’.

Through a comprehensive process of student-led co-design, Jodi hopes that her project will provide a new perspective on learning - one centred around personal achievement, goal-setting, and self improvement, rather than a checkbox-style learning exercise which fails to prepare students for life beyond school. ‘I want to change the Mindset in the teaching and learning styles used in schools,’ Jodi says. ‘This requires educating both teachers and students on Growth Mindset and the importance of perseverance and hard work over intelligence and arbitrary standards. Creating an inspiring space where teachers are pushing students in a positive way, to not just achieve enough, but to aim for their best, is the goal I have for schools’. Jodi’s ambition, without doubt, makes her a thought-leader of her generation with high aspirations for the future. ‘I want to inspire people and become some sort of inspirational speaker,’ she says of her plans. ‘I want to be a leader and make a long lasting impact whether that’s working with children or some other area that I enjoy. I am open to anything and I’m excited to try things out’.

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Jodi attended our Secondary Youth Leadership Conference and participated in the LeaderUp post event program. 

Youth Leadership Academy Australia’s very first post-event LeaderUp program saw some of Australia’s brightest young leaders come together to create an innovative solution to a problem they observed in their community. Throughout the ten-week program, students planned, organised, and proposed their projects to their schools, launching themselves into the process to create genuine, grassroots change.