Otago Girls’ High School head prefect Rata Williams, 17, said the event, held at Otago Girls’ last night, was about prefects joining together and forming connections.
"We’re just trying to learn from each other and see what is and isn’t going well in other schools.
"Just trying to create a community and cohesion and unite — hence the name."
A key part of forming the community was getting to know their counterparts from other schools, she said.
Each school had a different community, different values and different visions and the event was an attempt at coming together to address common problems each of them faced.
"There is quite a separation between high schools, especially the ones further out of Otago but we have East Otago here, Waitaki Girls’ and Waitaki Boys’ to make them feel like they have a community here too."
She hoped to learn how to successfully lead and work together as a team from her peers and the guest speakers, former King’s High School head boy George Bates and former Otago Girls’ head prefect Jen Marsh, Rata said.
"Jen talked about how important it is to delegate.
"Lots of schools have a big prefect team, so it is a shared responsibility," Rata said.
In small groups the prefects shared ideas with each other about what activities they planned to address issues such as creating cohesion between year levels at their schools.
Rata said she hoped the prefects would feel comfortable reaching out to each other in the future to help each other solve problems in their schools.
She hoped future generations would continue the initiative in the future.
