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An agricultural education for every possibility
A career in agriculture is often something passed down through bloodlines and inherited, but for families living on a farm, the burden of providing their children with an holistic education is significant. That’s where the selection of the right school becomes critical – and few have the resources to deliver “holistic” quite like The SCOTS PGC College.
With a 36-hectare campus, The SCOTS PGC College is ideally placed to offer a top-of-the-range education for the next generation of farmers and agricultural industry professionals, supporting the ongoing development of the industry.
Whether they’re harvesting honey from the beehives, cultivating rosella plants and vegetables, rearing cattle or even flying drones and using the latest ag technology, the students at SCOTS PGC have countless learning opportunities – and they can’t get enough.
The school is particularly proud of the agricultural aspects of its curriculum, encouraging the students in their sheep and cattle show teams to participate in the EKKA as well as shows further abroad.
SCOTS PGC is well known for addressing the vocational aspects of agriculture study, but the team, led by Principal Kyle Thompson, is also committed to maintaining a high standard across a range of standardised academic subjects like mathematics and English.
“I'm a firm believer that education and excellence have many guises, and our vision is for SCOTS PGC to be a school of excellence, in whatever guise excellence takes for our students. We want the independent education that our kids get to be of the highest quality, but we also want to remain true to our communities – our locals and our boarders – and provide pathways and opportunities for them to build capacity and to maintain their connection to traditional areas of endeavour,” Mr. Thompson says.
“Whilst we’ll always honour traditional methods of doing things and our history, we also want to look at what agriculture is going to be like in five, 10, or 25 years' time and move with what the community is going to need, particularly in terms of sustainable agriculture practices.”
As students look to the future, they also have access to certificate courses in engineering and manufacturing as well as SCOTS’ extensive industry and tertiary education connections, preparing them for careers with ongoing growth potential.
Of course, it takes a special team to deliver an education that covers such a broad spectrum of opportunities – and Principal Thompson is open about the challenges involved in developing their wide-ranging program.
“Covering all bases for our students is one of our greatest challenges and we do it well, but it is difficult because we have to have a breadth of subjects that many larger schools can’t or won’t offer,” he says.
“That means we’ve got to have agriculture staff, Maths and English staff – even our co-curricular activities, being where we are, are quite unique. We have a director of equestrian; we have someone to lead our cattle and sheep teams – and we're all wanting to provide the next level of education for kids and get the next capable kids into the workforce with capacity.”
“I will say without exception, we are recruiting some fantastic staff who are looking for a sense of connection, community, belonging, and purpose – and being in a regional setting, you get all those things in spades. It’s parent teacher night, every night of the week at five o'clock in aisle three of Woolworths.”
In their quest to educate the young people of today, SCOTS PGC is raising up the farmers who will feed the world tomorrow.
Website: https://scotspgc.com.au/
Email address: postbox@scotspgc.com.au
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