On Friday 1 March, Year 9 Agriculture students and Year 10 Cattle Team members attended a Junior Judging Day hosted by Blayney Show Society and the Department of Primary Industries.
For those of you who haven’t tried it before, Junior Judging is about teaching students how to evaluate the quality of different agricultural products based on the criteria that are important for each product. To do this, the judges prepare four of a particular product to evaluate – this could be four fleeces, four cows or four trays of grain. The students are then required to apply their knowledge of the product to rank them from one through to four, with those student who rank them correctly then given the opportunity to justify their decision to the judge. It’s a highly competitive field and something which many of our students compete in outside of school at agricultural shows.
Students spent the morning attending workshops to learn the finer points about all the different products you can judge, such as cattle, meat and wool sheep, fleeces, grains, cotton, dairy cattle, soils, and even auctioneering. In the afternoon, they had the chance to try their hand at judging, with some students getting some great results considering the large number of students attending from other schools in the area.
Matilda Penfold – First in Junior Beef Cattle, Second in Junior Meat Sheep
Amanda Penfold – Third in Junior Meat Sheep
Angus Oldham – Highly Commended in Junior Merino Sheep
Charlie McKiernan – Highly Commended Junior Merino Sheep
Fraser Gill – Second in Intermediate Beef Cattle, Third in Intermediate Cotton
Hugh Cleton – Second in Junior Beef Cattle
Jack Reid – Third in Junior Beef Cattle
Mitchell Argent-Smith – Second in Junior Merino Sheep
Thanks to all the students who attended for their enthusiasm and participation.
Mr Alister Meek, Agriculture Teacher
