Fleece flies in Feilding school hall once more
June 5, 2025
Students revive long-dormant school shearing competition to raise funds.
Fleece flew as Feilding High’s top shearers and wool handlers battled it out for honours in the school’s revived competition. Photo: Monique Taylor
Fleece was flying in the Feilding High School Shearing competition on Wednesday. The school’s top six shearers and wool handlers battled it out to be crowned No 1.
After a fierce battle, Alex Wrenn from Dannevirke won the interhouse shearing and wool-handling title and the Aaron Haynes shearer cup, followed by AJ Hall from Taumaranui.
The top wool handler, taking home the best wool-handler cup and interhouse title, was Anna Harre from Taihape. Aria Cameron from Pohangina was the runner-up.
The competition is an opportunity for students to develop their skills and try their hand at performing under pressure.
“Show shearing has helped my shed shearing a lot,” said Harry Dixon, who placed sixth and has competed in five shows this year.
“It’s tough under pressure, but I’m benefiting from it, especially with the encouragement from my friends and family.”
“Competition is way different to normal wool handling,” said Mackenzie Carmen, who placed sixth in the wool handling and works for Hunterville Shearing over summer.
“When we work in the sheds, it’s harder to be so precise and take everything out since you’ve got to keep up with the shearers constantly.”
Shearing and wool handling used to be an integral part of the school, but the competition ceased in 1991, according to the trophy’s engraving, until it was reintroduced in 2020. Photo: Sam Tennent
The competitors battled through the semis and finals. Points are based on the quality of their shearing and the time taken to shear each sheep – the lower the better.
Commentated by Dannevirke shearer Tuma Mullins, the competition is held as a fundraiser by the school’s Ag-Hort committee. It starts with heats at one of Feilding High School’s farms, Manawanui, and the final is held in the school hall in front of students and the local community. Local farmer Mike Will supplied the lambs.
Raffles were also held to raise funds to support the school’s competitors travelling to Invercargill for the Junior Young Farmer of the Year competition in July.
Shearing and wool handling used to be an integral part of the school, but the competition ceased in 1991, according to the trophy’s engraving, until it was reintroduced in 2020.
“We had a lot of students who were shearers and interested in competition shearing,” said Kain Nixon, head of the agricultural and horticultural department at the school.
“And more of our kids wanted to get into shearing and wool handling. So it was a great opportunity to reintroduce the school’s competition.”
The school’s shearing programme has been going from strength to strength with record numbers of students getting involved.
Earlier this year, some of their students competed successfully at the Golden Shears in Masterton. Hunter Wigglesworth won the novice title, and he and Cody Hall took out second place in the school competition.
“Shearing and wool handling is such an important part of our culture and local community, it’s so valuable to give our students opportunities to learn and develop their skills,” Nixon said.
RESULTS
Wool handling
1st Anna Harre
2nd Aria Cameron
3rd Jess Will
4th Amelia Player
5th Mackenzie Carman
6th Ana Waugh
Shearing
1st Alex Wrenn
2nd AJ Hall
3rd Cody Hall
4th Mac Foreman
5th Hunter Wigglesworth
6th Harry Dickson
Agribusiness class embarks on fibre field trip
June 3, 2025
Whanganui Collegiate School students take in Massey University and Honest Wolf in Hunterville.
Students from Whanganui Collegiate School visited Massey University and Honest Wolf’s shop in Hunterville as part of their AgriBusiness studies, learning about the challenges and opportunities of the wool industry.
Keen to see where wool can take them, the Agribusiness class from Whanganui Collegiate School stepped out of the classroom recently to visit Massey University in Palmerston North and Honest Wolf in Hunterville.
“We’ve been focusing on the modern uses of wool, the export potential and the challenges facing the industry,” said Whanganui Collegiate School’s Agribusiness teacher, Grant Muirhead.
“And how businesses such as Honest Wolf are thinking creatively in response.”
The students came away from the visit to Massey University fascinated by the varying microns of wool. They gained understanding how the type of wool largely produced has limited demand. But they were given confidence there is still a future for wool with innovation.
“Honest Wolf was a good example of the innovation we discussed at Massey University,” Muirhead said.
“This proves customers are willing to purchase high quality goods with the right marketing and back story.”
Honest Wolf shared their journey from concept to creation, highlighting the importance of their partnership with manufacturers in India. While some local manufacturers were initially sceptical, the success of their strong wool products has proved the idea has real value.
They’re now preparing to adopt a direct shipping model, where customer orders are sent straight from the factory, rather than arriving in bulk shipments to the store.
Whanganui Collegiate School started offering Agribusiness as a subject in 2023. Initially it was a filler for a small group of Year 13s looking for a meaningful course before they finished school.
But in 2024 it was clear that there was significant interest from the students, and the class has been established.
“Having agribusiness as a subject for our students is giving them an understanding of basic business principles but in a primary industries context, which is so important in our agriculturally based country,” Muirhead said.
Stratford High School sets up school farm, students flock to learn farm management
10:48 am on 30 May 2025
Rachel Helyer Donaldson, Journalist
rachel.helyerdonaldson@rnz.co.nz
Stratford High School school farm Photo: Supplied
A Taranaki high school's new agricultural course is giving students the chance to get out of the classroom and get hands on with farming.
Stratford High School set up its school farm on three hectares of its own land and began running lessons this year. The farm has 30 sheep and students helped build its covered yards and a two-stand shearing shed.
Principal Cameron Stone said students were flocking to take part, with 120 out of 650 doing Agriculture. The course covers Year 9 to Year 13. The intake was "slightly more boy heavy" but there had also been "good interest from our girls as well".
Two-thirds of Stratford's school leavers choose work placements over university, and they were keen to get practical experience, Stone added.
Sheep at Stratford High School. Photo: Supplied
The school offered "full farm management" and the business side would come later, he said. "But for our Year 9s and 10s, and even Year 11s, it's more about that understanding of soil, pasture management, animal husbandry, farm management, spraying, and in time we will be looking to do our own hay as well.
"It's all about that side of farming and understanding what farm management is, is really important. As they get older, and the standards are more designed for the business end of things, then the older students will look at that."
How hands on does it get? "Well, if you think about what happens on a normal farm, we run the same process. Our ewes are in lamb at the moment, there's a ram with them, so come late August or early September, the whole lambing process will occur, and our students are a big part of that. There's obviously the shearing process, our ewes will need to be shorn, our lambs will be sold, and we're lucky to have sale yards down the road. So that whole process, whole cycle can be seen by our students, and they will be a part of it."
It was "not part of the plan, at the moment" for students to cull or slaughter animals, he added.
The programme was run by agriculture teacher Fiona Putt, who was also a local drystock farmer. "We are really lucky to have our own agriculture teacher as many schools have to use their science teacher."
Stone said the school had a five-year plan to develop a two-pronged agriculture programme, with a practice-based unit standard course, "with potentially the support of someone like Primary ITO [Industry Training Organisation]", as well as an NCEA-accredited achievements standards, where senior students learn about the business side of farming.
"We're looking to progress, as numbers grow, as interest grows, and as we learn more about running a farm as a school. It's not as easy as it sounds and we may need to look at having a part-time farm manager on board as well."
Year 10 student Vinny Hunt said he always wanted to be a farmer. "I don't really like sitting in a class, and this is more hands on and I wanted to get out."
He's looking forward to shearing and lambing later in the year, but he's already learned a lot.
"I've learned how to safely handle sheep and cattle, how to calculate pasture cover and how to fix a fence."
Vinny said he also enjoyed mustering sheep.
Stone said from June next year the school would get back 17 hectares that are currently leased out. The farm could take on more stock and perhaps diversify into dairy. It could also mean the school introduced different standard courses, such as learning to use quad bikes and tractors.
The school had received "amazing" support from the community, in getting the farm up and running, he added. "We've had parents who are involved, local organisations who have helped out, either through sponsorship or labour. It's been unbelievable, how many people have supported us and we're incredibly grateful."
Looking further afield, Vinny said agriculture was his favourite subject and it was giving him skills for the future. "I want to become a dairy farmer or maybe even drystock or become a contractor mowing fields."
Growing young minds
Sonita Chandar15:29, Jan 10 2024
UNKNOWN/STUFF
Students from Motueka High School play the Grow game.
Students in New Zealand secondary schools will benefit from a new board game developed to help build knowledge and understanding of food production.
The new ‘Grow’ board game was officially launched at the Fieldays Opportunity Grows Here Careers Hub and was expected to be available in schools in April. However, delays in production meant it was late arriving and wasn’t available until Term 4.
Grow was developed as part of a joint initiative between Rabobank, Te Whare Wānaka o Aoraki Lincoln University and the Agribusiness in Schools Programme. The game was created to support learning by year 11 students studying National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) Agribusiness.
It touches on all the major topics included within the agribusiness curriculum and provides students with a fun way to acquire and reinforce the course content.
Rabobank New Zealand CEO Todd Charteris said the idea for the new game came about following discussions between Rabobank’s Upper South Island Client Council – a group of the bank’s clients from the upper half of the South Island who meet regularly to discuss the challenges facing the agri sector – and Lincoln University.
“Our Client Councils have identified long-term industry capacity as one of the key challenges facing the agricultural sector and, over recent years, our Upper South Island Council has worked closely alongside Lincoln University to develop initiatives to highlight to school students the range of career opportunities within the sector,” he said.
“One of the topics that has regularly come up in conversations between our Council and Lincoln University is the need for more resources to support learning about food production at the secondary school level and, as a result, it was decided the two parties would collaborate to develop a new board game which would help shine a light on the wide array of knowledge and skills required to run a successful farming operation.”
UNKNOWN/STUFF
A new board game has been developed to help build student’s understanding and knowledge of food production.
Charteris said both parties felt it was essential to align the content of the game with the NCEA curriculum, so they reached out to Kerry Allen and Melanie Simmons from the Agribusiness in Schools Programme to help with the design process.
“After more than 18 months of development, the game is now ready to go, and I’m confident it will prove a hit with students and really help increase understanding of food production as well as encouraging more young people to consider a career in the primary industries,” he said.
“Initially, the game will only be made available to schools who are part of the Agribusiness in Schools programme but, if there is enough interest, there is also scope to make the game available to all secondary schools across New Zealand.”
Lincoln University Student Engagement Manager, Jaime Shone said the game focuses on the financial, social, and environmental aspects of food production and also incorporates elements of Mātauranga Māori.
“Up to six players can participate in the game, with all players initially allocated a piece of land and a sum of money before choosing if they wish to operate a dairy, sheep and beef, horticulture, viticulture or arable farming operation,” she said.
“Gameplay consists of players moving around a board and accumulating money, which then gives them an opportunity to purchase the required assets to operate their farm. Players must first successfully answer a question to collect an asset, and the first player to collect all the assets required for their farm wins the game.”
UNKNOWN/STUFF
The new Grow board game was officially launched at the Fieldays Opportunity Grows Here Careers Hub to help agri students develop their knowledge. From left: Rabobank chief executive, Todd Charteris, Ray Smith MPI, Minister of Agriculture Damien O'Connor, Jaime Shone Lincoln University and Kerry Allen Agribusiness in Schools Programme at the Grow launch event.
Shone said game questions relate to a massive array of topics including, but not limited to, biosecurity, soil composition, waterways, key agri terms, biodiversity, biological processes, animal behaviours, weather patterns and agricultural production by region.
“In addition to covering all key aspects of the agribusiness programme, game questions also have significant cross-over with the content of the NCEA geography and science curriculums,” she said.
“And we expect the game will also get plenty of use from students studying these topics.”
Agricultural & Horticultural Science teacher Anthea Garmey from Motueka High School – one of the more than 125 secondary schools that received the games – said she’d utilised Grow throughout term four with her year 11 and 12 students.
“It’s a fantastic game and the students engaged with it straight away,” she said.
“Since the games arrived, I’ve often had students come into class and ask if they can play the game, and then they will quite happily play it for the whole period.
“Everyone really loves it and has learnt lots from playing the game. And the real bonus is that the content is all very relevant for their assessment.”
Garmey said game questions had prompted some excellent discussions among her Agricultural & Horticultural Science students.
“There’s a lot of variety in the questions. Some of them are quite challenging and this has led to some really good discussions among the students about potential answers.”
Agricultural Science teacher Anita Taylor from Paraparaumu College – another of the high schools to receive sets of Grow – said students in her Agricultural Science class had also really enjoyed the new game.
“I used the game with my year 11 students as revision before their Agriculture exam, and it worked really well,” she said.
“The students found the questions quite challenging, but even the students who don’t often speak up in class seemed engaged and very interested in hearing the answers to the questions.”
Ms Taylor said she’d also been using Grow with some of her year 10 students to give them a taste of the Agricultural Science curriculum.
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By Education Gazette editors
ISSUE: VOLUME 102, NUMBER 8
Learning about everything from food science to future proofing is firing up our best and brightest high school students for careers in the primary sector. Read more
November 2022
Seventeen-year-old Levi Jennings has mixed feelings about whether his peers would be up to making the most of a lower voting age, but he believes the opportunity would be worthwhile. Read more.
November 24, 2022
Agricultural innovation students Connie Searle (left), Archie White and Claire Booker are among the first cohort of the University of Otago course. Read more
October 14, 2022
Massey University food tech student Mrinali Kumar is among finalists in the KiwiNet awards for her cauliflower-based ‘ice-cream’. Read more
August 18, 2022
July 22, 2022
The introduction of agribusiness as a subject at Kavanagh College signals "exciting times" in education, head of commerce Jill Armstrong says. Read more.
February 26, 2018
Growing up on a North Otago dairy farm, Isabelle Keeling's knowledge of the agricultural sector was limited to the dairy industry. Read more.
May 27, 2017
With an advantage of being farmer's sons, Southland Boys' High School students are among those leading the way with a new agribusiness programme coming to schools throughout the country. Read more.
September 13, 2017
City kid Fatima Imran moved to New Zealand from Dubai, but now loves agricultural studies and is inspired to pursue a career in the sector - all because of her school's farm. Read more.
September 08, 2017
