It’s been quite a year for Rosewood State High School captains Taylor Sover and Zoe James-Collier. The pair made it through some challenging times while remaining positive and focused on making changes that benefit their peers. Photo: LYLE RADFORD
THE year has flown by for Rosewood State High School captains Zoe James-Collier and Taylor Sover.
It’s a captaincy Zoe shares and this week she has the stage and next week it’s Taylor’s turn.
Sharing is something the duo do well but changes to their end of year speech have made things difficult.
“I found out probably about a month ago, only one of the school captains are allowed to say a speech and that it was to be Taylor,” Zoe said.
“They said that parents were complaining the speech took too long.”
Zoe said she’d like to be able to give a speech even for just 30 seconds.
She’s tried hard to implement changes on behalf of her peers but it’s not always been an easy fix.
“At the start I didn’t really know what to expect, I had no clue what being school captain was going to be like,” she said.
“I thought it would be chill and where you’d go with the flow, but it’s not really like that.
“If you are an ‘out there kind of person’, there could be conflict.
“If you’re trying to make a decision, not everyone is going to be happy with what’s decided.
“There are always going to be people who stay unhappy about things, then you try and make changes.”
A bonus is she’s learned resilience and how to resolve conflict.
When she went into the role, she wanted to speak up on behalf of her peers.
“One of the things we really wanted was year books and senior polo shirts,” she said.
“I got the polo shirts and then we wanted a change of venue for the formal.
“We tried hard to make it happen but it never went through with the people up top.
“Their reasoning was it failed a risk assessment.
“The last thing, and the whole of grade 12 really liked this one, we’d all be at the Rosewood Showgrounds in the hall and have our own little car parade down the main street for the whole of Rosewood to see.
“The school said no to that too as it didn’t pass the risk assessment.”
Zoe is looking forward to taking control of her life as an adult and she’s already secured an apprenticeship with Energex.
“I’ll be training to be an electrical mechanic. I did a certificate two in Electro Technology at TAFE this year,” she said.
“I’ve also done a certificate three in business, this has definitely helped me get into Energex.”
Next week Taylor speaks about his experiences as Rosewood State High School captain.
