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At the start of each year, students at Yeronga State High School are asked what’s wrong.
As part of the school’s student voice program – now in its fifth year – students hold regular summits to work out what could be done better.
“We wanted to make sure that [for] things that were bubbling up, instead of it turning into a negative thing, we would get on the front foot,” middle school head of department Holly Haswell-Smith said.
Yeronga State High’s middle school head, Holly Haswell-Smith (left), manages the school’s student summits and offshoot programs, which year 11 student Asha Abdelrahman Selat (right) regularly attends. Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt
“Especially in the past five years, global events have really played out at the local level, and we wanted to support students and make sure their voice was heard in a way that was really productive.”
Haswell-Smith said from those first student summits, follow-up meetings could re-evaluate school policy, launch new programs, or see external experts brought in to discuss key topics.
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“Depending on what the summit’s about and what part of the student voice is [there], the outcomes are completely different,” she said.
“We had a uniform summit four years ago, and that resulted in us not having rules around hair-dye colours, or whether you can have your hair up or down, unless it’s to do with health and safety.”
Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said the summits helped students gain “a sense of pride in the way they shape their school”.
Data from Yeronga State High’s annual reports shows suspensions shot up during and after the pandemic, peaking in 2022, when the rate of combined long and short suspensions was 30 per cent.
By 2024, this had dropped to about 11 per cent – below the Brisbane state high school average.
The Education Department recorded a 45 per cent drop in the number of all suspensions at the school between 2022 and 2024.
This equated to 129 fewer suspensions, despite enrolments growing by more than 150 students – or 20 per cent – during the same two-year period.
The school recorded one long suspension in 2024 – a seven-year low in the number of such suspensions – and a 90 per cent decrease from 2022.
Annual reports also showed that on average, about 57 per cent of students at Brisbane state high schools felt their opinions were taken seriously by teachers and supporting staff.
About 62 per cent of Yeronga State High School students felt their opinions were taken seriously.
This rose to about 90 per cent for the Queensland Academy for Creative Industries, which teaches students from year 10 and up, and Milpera State High School, a specialist school for students from linguistically diverse backgrounds who have recently arrived in Australia.
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“Providing a platform for young people to speak and develop solutions together is an excellent way to inspire future leaders,” Langbroek said.
“It’s great to see students gaining a sense of pride in the way they shape their school.”
The school’s Horizons Women’s Hub, now in its third year, was another idea born from the summits.
The girls’ group is open to current and former students, who discuss family expectations, friendships, and challenges such as managing aspects of their identity.
This year the program won an Australian Education Award.
Yeronga year 11 student Asha Abdelrahman Selat said the meetings were “a free space” that helped strengthen relationships between female students.
“You can really talk … it’s great to share and know you’re not going to be judged,” Selat said.
Yeronga State High School began its student voice program in 2020 and its women’s hub in 2022, with a boys’ group to be launched in 2026.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt
“It’s a safe space. It’s not just saying hi, I know what [the other girls] are going through … [and] it’s great seeing I’m not alone.”
She said the meetings also enabled students to maintain contact with the school’s alumni.
“Most of them, they’re doing what they wanted to do [after school] … the stuff that they’d talked about, they’re going for it,” Selat said.
The hub also brings in expert speakers to address students’ questions on difficult topics such as learning to speak assertively and understanding coercive control.
“I think it’s one of those things where if we don’t create these spaces for young women, they don’t have enough resources to do it for themselves,” Haswell-Smith said.
She said the women’s group this year asked the school to create a similar program for male students.
“They were like, ‘the boys need this information too, and they need to be involved’,” she said.
During initial talks with students and domestic violence advocate Michael Jeh, Haswell-Smith said the school planned to structure the boys’ group differently, encouraging older students to be role models for their younger peers.
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