5 Ways to Combine Student-Led Learning with Explicit Teaching

Felicity Neeson
Jun 18
4 min read

How leadership development can thrive in the era of explicit instruction

There’s a growing shift in Australian schools toward explicit teaching - a structured, teacher-led approach to building knowledge and skills. It’s research-backed, strategically encouraged across Catholic, independent, and public sectors, and has clear benefits when implemented well.

But for educators passionate about student-led learning, this shift can raise questions: Where does inquiry fit? What happens to agency, voice, and ownership?

At Yellow Arrow, we believe it’s not about choosing one approach over the other - it’s about combining the best of both.

Here are five ways we integrate student-led learning with explicit teaching in our leadership programs:

1. Start with a shared leadership experience (not just a lecture)

Rather than begin with a long explanation of what leadership is, we design hands-on challenges that give students an experience of leadership in action - often within the first few minutes.

Afterward, we help them unpack the theory within the experience - what worked, what didn’t, and what that reveals about leadership.

“Yellow Arrow provided a great session where students were able to focus on their leadership skills without even initially realising it. The students were very engaged and had a lot of fun with the tasks.”

Jodie Burton, Sports Coordinator, Frankston High School

Two students high fiving while playing a game

2. Scaffold the debrief to surface key leadership insights

Explicit teaching isn’t just about input - it’s also about making thinking visible. We structure our debriefs with deliberate prompts to guide students toward core concepts.

We invite the students to reflect on key questions like:

What did that activity teach you about what you need as a leader/team member?
Where did you see initiative? Communication? Adaptability?

This helps students connect action to theory and builds the foundation for more independent leadership decisions later.

“On the day there was a perfect balance between introductory activity, practice and application using data from our school.”

Steven Culbert, Leading Teacher - Voice and Agency, Cranbourne East Secondary College

3. Model leadership through your facilitation

In every Yellow Arrow session, facilitators are also modelling leadership - not just teaching it.

We’re intentional about naming what we do and why:

“Notice that we just played a quick game? We did that because we noticed the energy of the room drop and felt a boost was needed.”

This kind of think-aloud facilitation helps students see leadership as something they can practise, not just learn about.

"The staff are very friendly and made me feel very included, they explained everything thoroughly so everyone knew what the purpose of each activity was."

Alana, year 11 student, Swinburne Senior College

Yellow Arrow facilitator instructing a group of students

4. Provide scaffolding to build confidence

Freedom with no limits is intimidating and can contribute to student overwhelm. Whenever we lead an activity, we always have clear instructions and limits for the students to work within. This helps them to feel safe and take supported risks (rather than being thrown in the deep end without sufficient support).

Some examples of how we provide scaffolding are:

Introduce one rule/new element at a time and immediately follow it up with a quick activity or think-pair-share to consolidate it
Provide students a chance to chat with each other one-on-one before sharing with the whole group so they can process their thoughts
Add in complexity based on student capacity. Every activity is adaptable depending on the needs of the group, and we will always make adjustments to get the level right

“The sequence of activities built up the confidence of our students as they had to push themselves further out of their comfort zones as the day progressed.”

Ernest Ridgeway, Year 11 Village Leader, Phoenix P-12 College

5. Give students real responsibility after clear skill-building

In our Leadership Curriculum, we explicitly teach leadership skills early on - like collaboration, initiative, and communication - and then hand over responsibility.

Students finish the program by planning and delivering their own leadership workshop for younger peers. It’s student-led, but supported by everything they’ve learned and practised so far.

It’s the perfect example of explicit teaching leading to authentic leadership in action.

“Ideally we’re setting up these young people for their employment, for their love of life, and their wellbeing.”

Kate Clonard, Clonard College teacher who used our curriculum with her students

Final Thought

Explicit teaching and student-led learning aren’t in conflict - they’re complementary tools. When thoughtfully combined, they help students understand and embody leadership.

And that’s exactly the kind of learning that sticks.

Want to See This in Action?

Our Leadership Curriculum is built around this blended approach - pairing explicit teaching of key leadership skills with structured opportunities for student-led application.

Over the course of the units, students go from learning about leadership to confidently practising it - culminating in planning and delivering their own workshop for younger students.

It's our answer to the question: “How do we develop student leadership in a world moving toward explicit instruction?”