Our school farm is rapidly becoming a centre for sustainability education. We teach students and teachers from Henry Kendall and Gosford High schools. The farm currently has 53 chickens; that get to roam the entire six acres during the school day, two young heifers, eight sheep and seven lambs. The heifers and sheep form a ‘flerd’ that is rotated through grazing cells in an attempt to teach students the benefits of cell grazing and regenerative agriculture.
We have a large market garden that works on permaculture principles; providing food for students and staff, two recently constructed swales, a citrus orchard, two fully irrigated greenhouses, a large incubator and much more. We have just installed fifteen nesting boxes for possums, large and small birds and microbats.
Our recently built yarning circle has just been landscaped and our new biodiversity zone has just been planted. We have just installed twenty signs that allow students and community members to tour the farm and be prompted by concepts that support sustainable agriculture e.g. ‘Swale’, ‘Compost – the browns’, ‘Beneficial plants’, ‘insect hotels’ , ‘the role of amphibians’ etc…Each sign is linked to our under-construction website ‘The Farm’. This website is linked to Science, Geography and TAS syllabi.
The farm is also lucky enough to have an interesting history with large Red Cedar and Hoop Pine trees planted in the late 1800’s as part of the state nursery and arboretum and a natural spring well.
We love our farm!
