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, get exam ready in our 1-day HSC Trials Accelerator, and so much more!
Find out how Quinn navigated Year 12 differently throughout 2022!
Introducing: Quinn Watson
Category: Social Impact & Change
School: Woolgoolga High School
State: NSW
Career Aspiration: Civil Engineering
Achievements
- Student representative for DOVES (Department of Student Voices in Education and Schools) Council
- Spoke on gender equality in sports, student mental health, STEM subjects, consent education and digitalisation of the curriculum in the DOVE Council
- Set up mechanisms and functioning roles of the DOVE Council
What makes Quinn a Trailblazer?
Quinn Watson is one of the student representatives for the Department of Student Voices in Education and Schools, or ‘DOVES’, Council. He has been staking his place and voicing student concerns to the politicians who decide on education policy.
It sounds pretty straightforward: students – arguably, the most important group when it comes to education — should have a direct say in the policies on schools and education. But, before DOVES, that wasn’t a thing.
Now, since applying and receiving a seat at the DOVES Council, Quinn helps steer attention to issues actually students talk about. Raising the questions on gender equality in sports, student mental health, STEM subjects, consent education and digitalisation of the curriculum are just a few things Quinn has put forward.
This would be easier work, if it weren’t for him being part of the inaugural year of the DOVES Council. Since it was the first year of the DOVES Council, Quinn did the heavy lifting of figuring out how the council would actually function from the roles each student voice would play to the mechanisms they’d use. Add in the Covid-19 restrictions into the mix and having to work this out over Zoom, and Quinn was spending quite a lot of his time and effort making DOVES happen.
You could say that NSW Education Minister, Sarah Mitchell, has put a lot of trust in Quinn, but being a student representative didn’t come without an extensive application process. Only after writing submissions, doing video interviews, travelling to Sydney, meeting the other council members and then having a brief meeting with the Education Minister did Quinn get the green light on being one of the first student representatives on the council.
Quinn has cherished his time as a DOVES Student Representative and working with his team of student members.The opportunities Quinn has gotten is once-in-a-lifetime — not every student gets to be directly in line to Education officials and propose new ideas.
This all fed back to his communication skills and, later on, will help him pursue his career goal of a civil engineer. Of course, it’s not a fully-formed career goal yet as Quinn wants to keep his options open for other fields.
Apart from his role in the DOVES Council, Quinn also has been studying tirelessly for the HSC and juggling the commitments of being a Year 12 student. For him, the greatest challenge he has encountered is balance between school, social life, work and time for himself. The fear of burning out is only ratcheting up as Quinn prepares for Trials and the final HSC exams.
Quinn has undoubtedly made a change to NSW students by creating the foundations of the DOVES Council. His resilience and go-getter energy makes us enthusiastic to award him as one of our 2022’s Trailblazers.
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
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