I am writing in reply to two recent articles by Geoff Adams, the most recent being ‘Can we expect to study agriculture in Shepparton?’, on January 14.
Mr Adams painted on both occasions agriculture at Greater Shepparton Secondary College in a very dismal light. I am writing to provide a more encouraging insight.
The agriculture and horticulture program at GSSC has germinated and seedling vigour is strong.
Despite the subject being offered at Wanganui Park Secondary College in the past decade, not enough students chose it for the subject to run.
This was not through lack of trying on behalf of the school, which had a fantastic poultry facility, good student gardens and well qualified and enthusiastic staff.
As with any subject area, if the subjects are not currently up and running it is difficult to get them going because students generally choose their subjects from word of mouth and recommendations from their peers.
Some points I would like to make regarding agriculture at GSSC are:
- GSSC is a new college and new ag subjects are now running. Enrolments in subjects will grow as student interest increases and the program develops.
- 2021 saw the Year 9 elective, ‘A Sense of Humus’ run for the first time. Greater Shepparton City Council supported this unit, awarding GSSC a Community Sustainability Grant. Despite lockdowns and disruptions we visited four farms during the semester and connected via Teams with a ranching family in Montana which was featured in the movie To Which We Belong which was screened at COP26. This elective will be running again in both semesters in 2022.
- We will be running Year 11 VCE Agricultural and Horticultural Studies for the first time this year. The next stages of growth in ag-hort at GSSC are in the pipeline, with units of work and experiences to be offered from Year 7 in due course.
- GSSC agriculture teaching staff are highly qualified and experienced farmers or horticulturalists and have first-hand experience and knowledge in various ag-hort enterprises. They also have a wide network of farmers across the GV and further afield from which to draw experiences and knowledge.
- GSSC has a program that develops industry links in the community and is actively liaising with industry to enhance student experiences and opportunities. Our partnerships manager and career practitioners work closely with staff and industry to bring opportunities together. This has been occurring since the inception of GSSC. The enthusiasm from businesses towards supporting and enhancing student learning is most encouraging.
- We have a number of students completing school-based traineeships with Wodonga TAFE and they are doing very well, leading them on to future employment.
— Charlotte Drinnan, agriculture teacher, Greater Shepparton Secondary College
10°C