From left: Te Paepae o Aotea students Ronan Hurley (Year 12), 16, Tyler Midgley (Year 12), 17, Luke Barnett (Year 13), 17, and Ryan Hockly (Year 12), 16, pictured here with Labour MP Glen Bennett.
From left: Te Paepae o Aotea students Ronan Hurley (Year 12), 16, Tyler Midgley (Year 12), 17, Luke Barnett (Year 13), 17, and Ryan Hockly (Year 12), 16, pictured here with Labour MP Glen Bennett.
It was just two points that divided Te Paepae o Aotea and Stratford High School.
Those two points were vital for Te Paepae o Aotea in the end, with the school’s team winning this year’s Taranaki Secondary School Agricultural Safety Challenge on July 28.
At the event, which first took place in 1998, students are challenged across seven agricultural safety topics covering handling of livestock, firearms, first aid, mental wellbeing, emergency preparedness, tractors, quad bikes and a quiz.
At this year’s event representatives from Land Based Training, New Zealand Police, Hato Hone St John, Rural Support Taranaki, WITT Te Pūkenga and Taranaki Civil Defence Emergency Management were at Francis Douglas Memorial Colege on Friday to help run the event.
Students from Stratford High School, Te Paepae o Aotea, Sacred Heart Girl’s College, Inglewood High School, Francis Douglas Memorial College, New Plymouth Boys’ High School and Spotswood College took part in the challenge.
Te Paepae o Aotea teacher Gerard Kauralus says the winning school team did well on the day.
“They’re very good friends so a great team to begin with. They are all-rounders and overall demonstrated the most skill and knowledge about health and safety on the farm.”
Te Paepae o Aotea students Luke Barnett (Year 13), 17, Tyler Midgley (Year 12), 17, Ryan Hockly (Year 12), 16, and Ronan Hurley (Year 12), 16, were in the winning team, scoring 329.5 points.
“We were six points down going into the last challenge which was the quiz and we ended up winning by two points.”
Ryan says the livestock challenge was his favourite part of the day.
“It was hands-on and involved the whole team.”
Tyler says to prepare for the event Gerard would quiz them.
“He would challenge us during class time and our course content for agriculture also covered what we’d be doing on the day.”
Ryan says the team was well-prepared thanks to Gerard.
“We have to give him a big thank you to him for coaching and mentoring us. We’d also like to thank the organisers of the challenge and the representatives from the organisations that helped on the day.”
From left: Stratford High School students Slade Lowe (Year 11), 16, and Year 12 students Caleb Smith, 16, Judah Harvey, 17, Ethan Larsen, 16.
The challenge only awards the top two teams with Stratford High School claiming second place with 327.5 points. Year 12 students Caleb Smith, 16, Judah Harvey, 17, Ethan Larsen, 16, and Year 11 Slade Lowe, 16, were part of the team, with Caleb saying the day was both challenging and informative.
Judah says the team were confident in the practical exercises, with the quiz being the most challenging part of the day.
“All of the modules had their difficulties. For first aid, we were put into a situation we hadn’t experienced before and had to show how we’d help people. The disaster module was also interesting we had to talk about the impacts of a natural disaster, how to mitigate them and then put together an evacuation pack. I think we all found the quiz section of the day the most difficult.”
New Plymouth Injury Safe manager Alisha Stone says the challenge is focused on farm safety.
“It’s about putting safety on farms at the forefront of students’ minds, in a fun and interactive way.”
