Year 6 Guest Speaker
Our Year 6 students recently had the privilege of hearing from guest speaker Luke Kennedy, who shared his powerful and personal story of resilience, self-belief and transformation. Through honesty, humour and authenticity, Luke spoke about the negative labels he carried as a teenager and how they shaped the way he saw himself.
Luke’s message strongly resonated with our Year 6 students as they prepare for an important and exciting stage of their lives, including leadership opportunities, camp experiences and their transition to secondary school. His encouragement to be true to themselves, believe in their own worth and make wise choices around friendships was both timely and inspiring. Luke reminded students that the people we surround ourselves with can greatly influence our lives and that real strength comes from having the courage to be yourself.
We were captivated by Luke’s passion for helping young people build confidence, resilience and self-belief. He encouraged them to look beyond the opinions of others, recognise their own potential and approach the future with courage, kindness and purpose.
A particularly meaningful part of Luke’s presentation was hearing about his faith journey and the important role his relationship with God has played in shaping the person he is today. He shared how living with faith and purpose has helped him create the fulfilling life he now enjoys with his young family and encouraged students to reflect on the values guiding their own lives.
We are incredibly grateful to Luke for spending time with our students and leaving them with such an uplifting and empowering message as they continue their Year 6 journey.
STUDENT REFLECTIONS
Luke explained his life story of how he had a bad start and how he came back up and now he is a successful person. He started off as a person who didn’t believe in himself and he hated himself. He was full of “labels” that were negative comments about himself. When someone told him that he was a bad person or had bad qualities. He took it to heart and believed that he was bad. Over time he bounced back and tried to be himself and he came back and became a “different person” and he acted like himself. He is now an author and he is successful with a business and 3 books. This talk taught me that even if people say that you’re a bad person that doesn’t mean you “actually” are and you shouldn’t believe everything they say. You should just be yourself and live life as yourself.
Some key things I took from the chat was that we should be the real version of ourselves, be kind to ourselves and don’t hate ourselves. We should also lead ourselves and to not be a follower, especially if the people you’re following are not your people. He also said that if we are sad, upset or need a reset, we should do 3 things: breath, exercise, and read.