Class

Fantastic Start

Congratulations on all of the students on the fantastic start to the school year, particularly those Year 11's who are adapting to a longer school day and possibly, living away from home for the first time. 

Assessments

As we start to move into our first set of assessments across the school, it is important that students are referring to their assessment overviews and course outlines to ensure they are prepared.  If you are unwell or have a planned absence on the day of the assessment, please contact your teacher to make alternative arrangements.  

Monday mornings

Year 12: If you child is late to school on Monday morning, they will be placed on Compulsory Prep to enable them to catch up on missed work.  With only limited time available to deliver course content, it is imperative that students attend all timetabled classes. They must check in with their teachers to find out what needs to be complete prior to their next session.  This, however, does not refer to approved absences such as medical appointments. Repeated offences will result in negative entries into Compass.  We appreciate your support.

OLNA

Week 5 - Please see outline of timetable below.  All the best to our students who are working towards moving up a category or achieving their OLNA this round.

Mrs Sarah Aynsley

Head of Curriculum

Plant and Animal Production Systems

The start to the year has been a busy one, with the year 12 ATARs starting their lamb feeding trial and the Year 12 General APS class starting their cattle feeding trial. The lamb feed trial will allow the students to compare the weight gain, fat depth and eye muscle area of the lambs on three different feeds: EasyOne pellets, oaten hay and lupins, and the control group which will just be on pasture. The cattle trial will allow the students to compare the weight gain of our weaners with one group being fed Patmore Beef All Rounder pellets and the other group being fed oaten hay supplied by the school. Both trials will be run over the course of the term, and we will update everyone on the results.

The ATAR students for Year 11 and 12 were lucky to witness and assist our vet, Jim from Westbreeds, perform AI and embryo transfers on our Poll Dorset stud ewes. Students helped with administrating sedatives, antibiotics and pain relief to the ewes while also prepping them for surgery by clipping their wool and ensuring the area was cleaned with antiseptic to prevent infections. We successfully harvested 111 embryos, so hopefully in 5 months time we will have lots of stud lambs running around. 

The Year 11 ATAR students have learnt about the process of propagation in Plant Production Systems while studying plant structure and function; each student propagated their own plants they found on campus. They were able to keep their plants in their room to care for them diligently and hopefully increase the propagation success rate. The students also had the opportunity to dissect a number flowers to help them learn about plant anatomy and reproduction, investigating the differences of monocots and dicots using the school microscopes. 

In week four, the Year 12 ATAR students will begin their year-long fertiliser trial by completing at depth soil tests (up to 30cm) on their trial paddock with our College agronomist, Zac Rick. This will allow the students to obtain and analyse data such as the soil type, pH, current nutrient availability of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium as well as many other soil profiling aspects. This will help them to understand management decisions such as liming and to investigate the effects of differing fertiliser application strategies and rates.  

Ms Kateland Jury

Animal & Plant production Systems teacher