Shearing class at Wairoa College: Sweating for NCEA credits

Wairoa College agricultural course student Maiki Lange is trying out the woolshed, but hopes to one day be a sparky. Photo / Paul Taylor

There was a time when young teenagers in districts like Wairoa either left town or left school if they couldn’t get the education they wanted at their local schools.

But things have been changing at Wairoa College, with agriculture among the future education courses enabling NCEA credits and tertiary and career opportunities.

The school has two groups of students – Year 11 and years 12/13 - who head out each week with tutor Toby Taylor to Matai Station, Ardkeen, the property of farmers and shearing family Paul and Sonya Swann, sons Keith and Ryka and twin daughters Ashlin and Shawna, all the now teenage or adult offspring being current or former pupils of the school.

Last Wednesday, the Year 11 pupils got the chance to return the favour as they helped crutch more than 200 hoggets in preparation for the twins’ bid on Saturday to each shear 100 in a day for the first time – a milestone as the sisters step-up from the Novice shearing grade in which Ashlin won at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March.

Farmer and shearer Paul Swann shows the finer touches to the students on the Wairoa College Agricultural course. Photo / Paul Taylor

The next day, with inclement weather having meant a couple of students could not attend, pupils Karauria Kaahu, Zoe Clark, Gemahnai Solomon and Maiki Lange got their chance to shear a single sheep for the first time.

Zoe Clark, who had done a course with farmer and shearing record-breaker Marg Baynes. Photo / Paul Taylor

Clark had done a course with farmer Marg Baynes, who in 2009 with daughter Ingrid set a two-stand women’s lambshearing record, but the others were, essentially, shearing for the first time, with tentative steps, taught by Paul Swann and Taylor, who said it was a big effort from Swann, who had to plan his week “around us coming”.

Taylor said the course, developed over the past five years, is preparing students for going on to such opportunities as training by-farmers, for-farmers programme Growing Future Farmers or the two-year Smedley Farm Cadet training, careers in the shearing industry, or other prospects.

Lange comes from a family of shearers and woolhandlers, and is from Raupunga, the home of contractors Pahauwera Shearing, but he has other ideas.

“I want to be a sparky,” he says.

Wairoa College agricultural course tutor Toby Taylor gets to grips with the handpiece. Photo / Paul Taylor

Taylor says the course, which offers skills across the farm sector from shearing, to fencing, to machinery, is serving a purpose.

“It keeps the kids in school, and it’s definitely keeping the kids in tow,” he says.