Training Student Leaders to Lead Orientation
(A note on privacy: in line with PDPA, we're not able to disclose students' names or faces)
Every Freshmen Orientation runs on senior students who put their hands up to lead it. What usually doesn't come with the role is any real training in how to do it well, how to run a game safely, how to keep a group engaged when the energy dips, how to actually mentor a nervous freshman rather than just supervise them. One tertiary institution decided that if orientation was going to be student-led, the students leading it deserved to be properly equipped first.
What we built
Growthbeans designed and delivered a two-day experiential training programme built around the two roles orientation actually needs. Game Facilitators were trained to design, facilitate, and debrief games aligned with student development values, including how to write their own SOPs and think through risk assessment before a game ever runs. Student Mentors built a different skill set: rapport-building, reflective questioning, and coaching-based feedback, the tools that turn a mentor from a name tag into someone a nervous freshman will actually open up to.
Both groups then trained together, not just in parallel, so Game Facilitators and Student Mentors walked into Orientation Week with alignment, mutual understanding, and teamwork rather than two separate scripts running side by side.
What changed for student leaders
Student Leadership Capacity
Student Mentors led
group discussions with confidence, and Game Facilitators designed
and ran purposeful
games with clarity
Mentoring & Support for Freshmen
Coaching-based mentoring skills gave Student Mentors real rapport-building and reflective questioning tools, not just goodwill.
Sustainable Programme Quality
The institution gained a refined, repeatable orientation framework
with clear facilitation
and mentoring guidelines.
The scores back up what the impact looked like on the ground.
Programme Impact, by the numbers
Self-rated on a scale of 1 - 10
Game Facilitators • 141 respondents
8.21/10
Learning to design their own game
8.43/10
Creating SOPs and risk assessments
8.45/10
Practising the needed facilitation skillsets
Student Mentors • 222-232 respondents
7.89/10
Practising the skillsets needed as a mentor
7.23/10
Giving and receiving feedback from peers
7.30/10
Facilitating group mentoring sessions
What stands out isn't just that the scores were high; it's that they held up across 141 Game Facilitators and over 200 Student Mentors, two groups with genuinely different jobs to do. Confidence in the harder, more technical skills, like risk assessment and facilitation, actually outpaced confidence in the softer skills of giving and receiving peer feedback, which is exactly where a training programme should focus first: the skills that are hardest to pick up on your own.
What students say
"I learnt to give clearer instructions, how to lead a group and adapt on the spot."
"I learnt the importance of stepping out of my comfort zone to be a facilitator, and be more confident to start conversations and build rapport."
"The facilitators from Growthbeans were fantastic, and the programme was straightforward and educational. You can tell they were very passionate about training us."