Shaun joined 35 other students from schools across NSW to attend the 2018 Secretary for a Day program in Sydney on Monday, August 6.

Shaun was chosen to shadow the NSW Department of Education secretary Mark Scott, following along to his meetings and events for the day. 

“It was so great meeting the secretary and to observe how he worked,” Shaun said.

“Following him around for the day I learnt that he is very, very, very busy! His assistants will pretty much pass him a piece of paper for the day to tell him what he is doing and where he has to be.”

Shaun met government officials including the minister of education Rob Stokes and NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian. He said another highlight was touring the State Office’s.

“It was really good to see such big offices filled with amazing technology,” Shaun said.

“Because it was a relatively new building they had designed features to be useful in the future. There were twelve levels, a soccer field on the top floor and chargers for Teslas in the car park.”

As part of Education week, students of the program work shopped ideas and networked with each other over two days. 

The strategic goal discussed in the group was ‘every student is known for and valued in our schools.’

“A lot of ideas were discussed, the group found it interesting to know how my school works and then I found it interesting to hear how theirs works,” he said.

Shaun plans on slowly implementing his ideas at Eden High.

“At the moment I will need to catch up on school work, but I would like to implement one thing each term.

“One idea I would like to do is to help connect schools in the region, to create better communication not only between schools but with students and teachers as well,” he said.

“For example, a program where students teach the teachers for a day.”

Shaun said he will be preparing to run for school captaincy later this year.