PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents/Carers, Families and College Community

I attended the Ball last Friday night and enjoyed my evening. It is always lovely seeing our students dress up and looking fantastic, this year was no exception. There were a number of students that staff had to do a double take as they did not recognise them. There is such a transformation. 

A record number of students attended the Ball, dancing the night away and conducting themselves in an impressive way. We always reflect on activities and processes to see if we can make any improvement for next year. I am happy to hear any feedback from parents/carers about how we might improve the Ball. 

Again, my thanks to our staff who attended and assisted to make the Ball a success, particularly Mrs Hickman and Mrs Fimmano for being the main organisers. 

Earlier this week I spent some time around the farm watching Year 12 students engaged in their learning. I observed a group of students on Dairy working together, communicating, allocating tasks, demonstrating great competence and confidence to get the cows milked. I love this aspect of our agricultural colleges where students develop real life work readiness skills and attitudes because of our real life learning context. I know that it is these work readiness skills that employers appreciate in our students and a large part of the reason why doors are opened for them when they leave us.

Regenerative Agriculture

In the last year or so we have been hearing increasingly about the regenerative agriculture concept and in recent months we have involved our students with a number of different workshops and presentations including Muresk this week for the Year 11 group. 

As I understand regenerative agriculture is another take on biological farming principles where a entire ecosystem approach is taken and where soil health is critical to success. The philosophy is that when soils are healthy, the plants growing in them are healthy and the animals living off those plants are healthy.  

Other key principles include, protecting soils by maintaining cover and reducing tillage, improving soil organic matter, enhancing soils biological activity, encouraging diversity of plant species and the use of lower solubility fertilisers.  Proponents of regenerative agriculture would claim; reduced pests and diseases, reduced need for chemicals, increased water and nutrient holding capacity of soil, increased stocking rates. 

Another interesting side hustle is the potential to sequester carbon and economic benefits that may flow from that in an age where reducing carbon in the atmosphere is a global goal. We are already involved in some trials of mineral fertilisers but have started planning how we might set up a formal demonstration of regenerative agriculture at the College.