Palmerston North’s Cornerstone Christian School 2024 head students are Lily McDonald and Stefan Englebrecht

Cornerstone Christian School's head students for 2024 are Lily McDonald and Stefan Englebrecht.

Lily McDonald, 17, is this year’s head girl at Cornerstone Christian School in Palmerston North.

She is studying mathematics with statistics, drama, English, biology and chemistry. Her favourite subject is drama.

Her leadership style is encouraging and strong.

Lily encourages new students to participate in school activities to find their people. She is excited to enjoy all her last school events including swimming sports, athletics and cross-country.

Outside of school, she loves performing in dance shows and musicals. A highlight of 2023 was the school production Pilgrim, which she choreographed.

If Lily was in charge of $10 million to invest in Manawatū she would put it towards making community spaces more accessible.

As a child, she was good at talking to lots of people and becoming friends with many of them.

She wishes Manawatū had more opportunities for young people to share their talents.

Stefan Englebrecht, 17, is Cornerstone Christian School’s head boy.

He is studying mathematics with calculus, physics, chemistry, English and accounting.

As a child, Stefan was good at maths and building Lego.

His leadership style is servant leadership because he wants to help where he can and focus on others rather than himself.

Stefan advises new students to have fun because when you get to Year 13 you start to look back at your time at school and the memories you made.

“Make friends with everyone, don’t just hang out with your little friend group but get to know everyone in your year group. And most importantly ask questions in class otherwise you’ll leave class, and everyone will ask everyone what that lesson was about. No question is too dumb.”

He is looking forward to enjoying his last year at school and making memorable moments and friendships that can carry on after he has left.

A highlight of 2023 was becoming best friends with people he wouldn’t have thought he would become best friends with.

If Stefan was in charge of $10m to invest in Manawatū, he would build a theme park or expand the Lido Aquatic Centre and Victoria Esplanade so there would be more activities.

“This would draw tourists to Manawatū and have people stay over in our towns as people usually drive through Palmy or even residents that leave it to go to other places to experience the things that we cannot provide.

“My friends in Auckland always comment that there is nothing to do or see in Palmy so expanding these would bring new interest into the region.”

He wishes Manawatū had more food banks and places where people could get help and food, plus more support for existing food banks. “They have it tough at the moment with an increase in people coming to their doors but a decrease of food that they are able to hand out.”

Outside of school, Stefan enjoys playing games with his friends, volunteering at Just Zilch and doing taekwondo.