What are the Trailblazer Awards?
The Trailblazer Awards celebrates Year 12 students beyond their ATAR, recognising those who have overcome personal challenges and used their final year of school to positively impact their community.
Our Trailblazers will have the opportunity to network with industry leaders, build their personal brand and profile as a future leader, learn key career skills in our 3-day Pathfinder Accelerator, and so much more!
Find out how Cedric navigated Year 12 differently throughout 2021!
Introducing: Cedric Kutschera
Category: Social Impact & Change
School: Penrith Selective High School
Career Aspiration: Business Management/Accounting
Achievements
- Lead his school’s Volunteering Club
- Quiet Achiever Award from Melissa McIntosh
- Led Chess Clubs towards inter school tournaments
What makes Cedric a Trailblazer?
Active in his school and local community, Cedric managed a number of volunteer groups as a school prefect. Additionally, Cedric was involved in a variety of co-curricular activities, including Chess Club, History Interest Club and his school’s Debating Team.
Encouraging involvement and initiatives within the younger grades at his school, Cedric gained experience with social justice and improving the awareness of critical social issues throughout his school community. This included addressing issues of homelessness, advocating for fair working conditions and supporting environmental movements.
Leading the Fair Trade Club, Recycling Team, and the Volunteering Club, Cedric worked with groups of 40, 15 and 35 students respectively. Raising $1000 to donate to charities, Cedric also helped collect 3000 clothing items for homeless shelters as part of the Blanket and Beanie Appeal. He also ran food and clothing drives for Penrith Community Centre, to help families in need amidst COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Cedric was recognised for his efforts and selflessness by Melissa McIntosh, the Member of Parliament for Lindsay, awarding him the Quiet Achiever Award.
Cedric has also had work placement in real estate at Laing+Simmons, giving him the experience to create event calendars, manage social media, event calendars and develop information pamphlets for distribution. He further worked at Kumon as a tutor, learnt to train new staff, teach children and communicate with parents.
Despite the difficulties of studying from home, and learning on zoom due to COVID lockdowns, Cedric persisted, and was sure to reach out to teachers for further support beyond class.
With the dedication towards ensuring businesses are ethical and responsible, Cedric hopes to pursue business management or accounting, to address future issues surrounding business practices.
With all the different ways Cedric is involved at school and in his local community, it’s no wonder he has placed as one of our Top 50 Trailblazers for 2021!
The Top 50 Year 12 Trailblazer Awards
The Trailblazer Awards aim to identify and celebrate students who use their final years of school to invest holistically in the skills and experiences that will maximise their own future opportunities and make a contribution to the future of our society.
Our winners for the Year 12 Trailblazer Awards have demonstrated initiative in volunteering for their school or community, have participated in co-curricular activities, and have held leadership positions within their schools.
Learn more about who placed in the Top 50 Year 12 Trailblazers here!
About Art of Smart Education
At Art of Smart Education, we’re an award-winning provider of holistic tutoring and mentoring for students in years K-12. Our mission is to help students answer the difficult question, “What am I going to do with my life when I finish school, and how do I get there?”
We understand that true success involves mastering study, career and leadership skills while maintaining your wellbeing, not just excelling in academics and as a result, over the last decade, we’ve supported over 10,000 students to achieve their best and maximise their options for life after school.
Art of Smart offers K-12 Penrith Tutoring, to help you excel!
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