Western schools collaborate to teach agricultural skills
WESTERN schools are using a combination of digital technology and old fashioned country collaboration to pool resources and offer more opportunity for their students.
One recent example of this saw a group from the Lachlan Access Program, a combined class using resources from Condobolin High School, Tullibigeal Central School, Ungarie Central School and Lake Cargelligo Central School, visiting Dubbo on a field trip.
The students are from Stage 6, Years 11 and 12, and taught via video conferencing so they have a greater choice of electives to pick for their HSC, according to teacher
Katrina Thomas.
“It works really well, and it also helps the kids make new friends and relationships with different schools,” Mrs Thomas said.
“It gives the kids more opportunity for different subjects.
“Often the teacher taking the video conferencing will only see the kids for three hours each week, and different teachers will have them for other lessons, so you need to collaborate a lot more to give the students the best opportunities and outcomes,” she said, mentioning the combined classes are also great for teacher morale because of that knowledge sharing.
Part of the trip saw a tour through Fletcher International’s grain rail freight terminal as well as the abattoir.
She described it as a fantastic opportunity for the kids to see how the farm product they know gets processed, “and how it’s value-added and then exported all around the world.”
Many of the students have visited Fletcher International’s farm, Kiargathur Station, which is near Condobolin, so a visit to the Dubbo plant is a great way to follow through the whole process, Mrs Thomas said.
She believes it’s vital for western kids to see first-hand just how many great careers can be followed within agriculture, and that it’s not limited to on-farm jobs or seasonal work.
The students were impressed with the fact so many employees at Fletcher’s had started in basic entry-level roles and worked their way up.
“People have just started from the ground level and had opportunities and worked their way up through on-the-job training, which they do lots of here at Fletcher’s. So it’s showing the kids that, just because you don’t want to go to university, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get a job in agriculture or do the things that you want to do – there’s lots of opportunities,” Mrs Thomas said.
“Fletcher’s are very generous with their time. We were here last year as well and they took us through the plant, which is really good.”