Leader in the making

For Ethan Batt, growing up in the tiny country town of Marradong was very isolating.

But heading into his sixth year as a boarder at Hale School, Ethan has been selected as the school captain and wants to lead his “180 brothers” to success.

The 17-year-old said he was proud to be chosen for the role.

“I thought it would be pretty cool because I remember as a young Year 7, just seeing the prefects, those older boys, and just how much of an impact they had on me,” he said.

“I want to do the same for the other young boys that come through the school, so I’m very excited at the opportunity.”

Ethan will work with the prefect team and vice-captain to help run the school from a student perspective.

“We will take ideas from other peers or the prefect group and try to organise events throughout the year, like the school ball, as well as our leavers jackets,” Ethan said.

“Also working with the headmaster, head of senior school and head of leadership, we will try to build a better comm-unity within the school by putting kindness before success.”

Ethan received a boarding scholarship for Hale in Year 7.

The Marradong product said he had made lifelong friends with his fellow boarders.

“Everyone’s become so close and you get to know people from all over WA and Australia, even international, and that bond can’t be replaced,” he said.

Ethan said he was grateful for the sacrifice his parents had made.

“It’s a big thing to send me away. It was never planned for me to go to Hale, I was just going to go to a public school down the road but we got the opportunity and Mum and Dad said I couldn’t turn it down,” he said.

“I really appreciate my parents’ sacrifice, whether it be money or just time they’ve put in for my sister and I to go to the schools we’re at.”

Once a major town in the Peel region, Marradong was settled by the Batt family in the 1890s.

The town once boasted a shop, post office, hotel, church and one-room school.