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Boarding is the heart of St Margaret’s
Caring for boarders has been a part of St Margaret’s DNA ever since its inception in 1895.
Since then, the school has educated generations of Australia’s rural and regional daughters.
Today, the boarding house is, both physically and symbolically, the beating heart of the school, with a diverse group of 195 students from Years 5 to 12 living right in the centre of its beautiful Ascot campus.
St Margaret’s excellence in boarding has been recognised with national awards. In 2019 and 2020, the school won boarding school of the year in the Australian Education Awards and Excellence Awards in 2022, 2024 and 2025. In 2023, the school proudly won the education category of the Queensland Reconciliation Awards for its Reconciliation Action Plan, and in 2022 received the Australian Boarding Schools Association (ABSA) and IEBA Excellence in Indigenous Boarding award.
The St Margaret’s boarding house has been helmed by outstanding educator Lesa Fowler, who has been Head of Boarding since 2008, and who, in 2020, received ABSA’s prestigious Premier Leadership Award.
Ms Fowler is deeply committed to creating a cohesive boarding community where the richness of its culturally and geographically diverse residents – from across Australia and overseas – is celebrated. She works to ensure boarders both feel a sense of belonging and connectedness within the community while also benefiting from its diversity, nurturing a global outlook in all students.
Specialist boarding staff are at the heart of the St Margaret’s boarding experience. Open and regular communication with boarding families is a given, with staff establishing warm bonds in this important partnership.
Boarding staff are closely connected to day school teachers: the teachers take evening prep, helping ensure students are on track. As boarders commence at the school having come from a wide range of educational experiences, such as School of the Air, additional literacy and numeracy programs help close any gaps that might exist, giving boarders the best foundations for future success.
St Margaret’s introduced a Certificate III in Agriculture, aimed at the many girls from rural properties, equipping them with the knowledge, skills and experience to return to work on the family station or continue tertiary studies in this field.
Boarders also compete in the St Margaret’s instigated High School Campdraft Percentile Cup, which honours their incredible abilities gained from their rural upbringings.
Did you know?
Perhaps a little-known fact is that St Margaret’s is one of the few full-time boarding schools, meaning it does not accept weekly boarders. This results in no mass weekend exodus, so girls always have plenty of company and organised activities to enjoy facilitated by a fulltime boarding wellbeing and activities coordinator.
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Trace minerals are required for optimal growth, reproduction, and immunity. Optimising trace mineral status relying solely on oral supplements across a herd may fail because of variation in individual intake and reduced absorption due to antagonism of other ration components and minerals. The use of injectable trace mineral supplements has been associated with positive reproductive outcomes including improved conception rate, increased odds of pregnancy and greater final in calf rate. A study conducted on 2,168 dairy cows, administered injectable trace minerals, four weeks prior to calving and again four weeks prior to the start of mating showed treated animals had a 3.3 per cent greater final in-calf rate, and a reduced time from start of mating to conception, compared to control animals 1 . The Importance of B12 Dr Carl Eden, Technical Services Veterinarian with Boehringer Ingelheim says “Vitamin B12 is sometimes referred to as a ‘super vitamin’ because it is only required in very small amounts but vital to many essential metabolic pathways. However, demand for B12 can vary considerably during the year and we see serum levels of B12 fall at critical times, such as the first few months after calving.” Vitamin B12 contains cobalt, so deficiency in cobalt can lead to deficiency in vitamin B12 because ruminants get most of their B12 as a byproduct of ruminal fermentation where the bacteria in their rumen assemble B12 from cobalt for use by the cow. Sub-optimal trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at calving, mating, and drying off has been shown to negatively impact growth, reproduction, and immunity. Using a trace mineral injectable containing vitamin B12 can improve trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at these critical times. Marks-Min with Vitamin B12 – The Evidence In the largest trace element study to date, Marks-Min Injectable Trace Mineral with Vitamin B12 demonstrated remarkable results when compared to a reference trace mineral injection. “Given the differences between Marks-Min and other products on the market, we wanted to generate a compelling data set to demonstrate how effective it was compared to the pioneer product. We entrusted this work to a third-party research company” says Dr Eden. “We chose farms that were at the top of their game from a reproductive perspective. We made sure that the farms had no evidence of trace element or vitamin B12 deficiencies or excess.” Across all outcomes of interest, Marks-Min demonstrated clear non-inferiority when compared to the reference product. Outcomes measured included submission, pregnancy and conception rates, and six week in-calf rate. Marks-Min demonstrated it is highly suited as an alternative treatment to the reference product. Reference: 1. Hawkins, D., and B. V. S. Franklin. New Zealand Dairy Veterinarians Newsletter 24 (2007): 12-16 Company website: livestockfirst.com.au Company email address: CustomerCare.Australia@boehringer-ingelheim.com Company video: https://vimeo.com/1138807630?fl=pl&fe=cm
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