Selecting the right school for your young child can be a challenging task and you want to make the right decision for your child’s academic growth and future success. You know what your child needs now as a preschooler or kindergartner, but how will those needs translate as your child grows?
Parents who tour Sacred Heart Schools Chicago have the opportunity to learn about how their child will experience academic growth at this independent preschool-grade 8 Catholic school for students of all faiths. But they’ll also glimpse their child’s potential future success when they experience a student-led tour and meet a Sacred Heart Student Ambassador.
“Our Student Ambassadors are in a leadership position that has been in place for at least a decade,” says Ann Chiumino, Admissions Director at Sacred Heart Schools Chicago. She says Sacred Heart Student Ambassadors are eighth grade students who fulfill a variety of responsibilities, including guiding parents of prospective students on tours of the school as part of regular admissions events.
“Parents tell us that the reason they chose Sacred Heart for their child is because of that eighth grader who showed them around the school,” Chiumino says. “They say they want their child to be that composed, that thoughtful, and to feel comfortable looking an adult in the eye, answering questions and holding conversations. Not all eighth grade students have that ability.”
Authentic perspectives — from eighth graders
The Student Ambassador role is a coveted position and students must apply and be interviewed before being chosen. Each year, only about a dozen are selected to represent their school by leading tours. While many have attended Sacred Heart since kindergarten, others can speak about their experiences transferring from other schools.
Student Ambassadors are provided with set facts about buildings and renovations, but they have plenty of opportunities to share their favorite experiences at Sacred Heart. Authenticity is important, Chiumino says.
“We don’t want the experience to be scripted. We want students to be able to provide authentic, truthful commentaries on their time here,” she says. “We want our Student Ambassadors to own their role.”
Student Ambassadors demonstrate a variety of skills that they, more often than not, have learned throughout their years as students at Sacred Heart.
What makes Sacred Heart special
From their first day at Sacred Heart, students begin developing communication skills that help lead to future success in high school, college and beyond. Teachers establish and constantly model those skills with students.
“They come in on their first day of school and the Head of Schools shakes their hand. In their classrooms, they shake hands good morning,” Chiumino says. “Those values of being a good communicator are instilled when they walk into the school and then are reinforced at every age.”
Because effective communication involves active listening, students experience this as well. “It’s about letting the person you are talking with know they are being heard, and that’s something teachers model, too,” she explains. “They let students know their voices count. It’s a way of communicating that lets someone know you respect them and want to know what they have to say.”
This demonstrated respect is especially important for middle school students, and teachers and staff at Sacred Heart genuinely engage with students to foster authentic mutual conversations.
As ambassadors, students hone their communication skills and become comfortable talking to adults they have just met. “They gain confidence in speaking about something they know really well, which is their school, and they learn how to answer questions they can’t anticipate,” Chiumino says. “They accentuate the positive and show what they love about the school.”
Even if they’re nervous at first, Sacred Heart Student Ambassadors gain confidence and challenge themselves to build skills that will serve them well as they move forward in their academic careers.
“One of the things I have heard as our students go on to high school, whether they attend a Catholic school or a CPS selective-enrollment school, is that teachers know when students have attended Sacred Heart Schools. They are polite and carry themselves with an appropriate level of confidence, and that includes their abilities to communicate better than other kids their age.”
And, Sacred Heart Student Ambassadors have fun, too.
“They love it. We touch base after their tours to find out what went well and if they had questions they didn’t know the answers to. They all end up saying it was really fun,” Chiumino says, adding that touring parents also provide positive feedback about their tour guides.
“We advertise that we do student-led tours, but you have to experience it to really understand the impact,” Chiumino says. “That’s the Sacred Heart experience.”
Learn more about Sacred Heart Schools Chicago. Visit shschicago.org.
