Farm safety was at the forefront at a recent event, where a team of four students from Hawera’s Te Paepae o Aotea School won this year’s Taranaki Secondary Schools Agricultural Safety Challenge. The winning team consisted of Luke Barnett, Tyler Midgley, Ryan Hockly, and Ronan Hurley.
Stratford High School were second place in the event. Other participating schools included Sacred Heart Girls’ College, Inglewood High School, Francis Douglas Memorial College, New Plymouth Boys’ High School and Spotswood College.
New Plymouth Injury Safe and Land Based Training hosted the annual farm safety challenge on Friday at Francis Douglas Memorial College.
New Plymouth Injury Safe Manager Alisha Stone said that the challenge was a hands-on event. Its focus on safety makes it a unique event for agricultural students.
“It’s about putting safety on farms at the forefront of student’s minds, in a fun and interactive way”.
Teams of four agriculture/horticulture students from Taranaki Secondary Schools competed in the annual event, which has been running since 1998. The students competed in seven modules covering safe handling of livestock, firearms, first aid, mental wellbeing, emergency preparedness, tractors and quad bikes and a quiz.
A range of organisations helped to deliver the modules including Land Based Training, New Zealand Police, Hato Hone St John, Rural Support Taranaki, WITT Te Pūkenga and Taranaki Civil Defence Emergency Management.
Prior to presenting the trophy, the students were addressed by Ross Redpath. Ross has a long association with the competition – initially as the AgHort Science teacher at Inglewood High School from the competition’s inception and this year, as a regional agricultural education and project advisor. This new role, funded by the L A Alexander Trust focusses on agricultural education initiatives and promoting the sector across a range of audiences. “Today’s event is fantastic example of bringing relevant, engaging learning to Taranaki secondary school students and the organisers are to be applauded for their efforts”.
For further information, please contact NPiS Manager Alisha Stone, phone 027 227 6277 or manager@npis.org.nz
