ASK THE STUDENT… Esme Gilligan

Esme Gilligan is an active and artistic Waconian and Junior School house captain at Cheadle Hulme School. As well as leading her classmates to success, Esme can often be found on the football pitch as a goalkeeper for FC Bluestar or helping with creative projects at home and in school. Her favourite subjects include art and English.

What do you think makes a good leader?

Being kind, loyal and helpful. Listening to people and hearing their opinions, not just yours. If you follow just yours, people might feel like they didn’t get chance to speak and they might feel a bit annoyed at you. My teacher Mrs Mason is really nice and kind; in drama, she adds in people’s ideas and always listens to people’s opinions. It is also important to be encouraging and speak up.

School encourages us to go for things and when we were selecting this year’s house captains, only one person went for it. Me and my friend told everyone how great it was to be a house captain, then a lot of other people decided to do it; one of my best friends was scared, but I told her all she would have to do was prove she could be a good house captain and show the Waconian values, then she got it. Remember to con tribute too. If you get the role of house captain and let someone else do the work for you, you’re letting yourself down by giv ing up and won’t get the gratitude you deserve.

What is your top tip for working well as a team?

Offer help to people if they’re in bad situ ations. As a house captain, it’s not your job to be a school council member, you’re still a leader and you want to be kind to people. Say, for example, someone feels like they’re being left out – if you see them feeling like that and don’t do anything, it’s not very kind and people might notice. But if you help someone get back up, it’s a nice thing to do and people will see you as a very kind person. They will want you to carry on being a house captain and work better for you.