The latest at Westminster School
Agriculture Show Team
May 2024
With nearly 100 students having expressed interest in the Royal Show team this year, training has well and truly begun! We're thrilled to partner with current and past Westminster families and vested industry breeders in 2024 as we build towards the Royal Show in late August/early September.
This year, Gus Lewellyn from Jillangolo Red Angus and Heath and Amanda Nickolls from Bull Oak Well have both provided steers for the Led Steer program.
Stephen Kellock once again has provided ten Kelvale bloodline Merino Wethers in collaboration with Anthony Lowe for the Merino Wether competition.
We maintain our long-standing connection with Michael Leopardi as he has continued to provide us with Boer goats for our Led Goat team.
We are also delighted to begin a new partnership with Casey Treloar and Nick Brokenshire as we have acquired two Holstein and Jersey Heifers for our Dairy Heifer team.
Our final, thrilling new addition in showing this year has been our recent status as a Border Leicester stud. We will be showing some of our stud sheep in this year's Royal Show and we are truly grateful to Martin Harvey from Paxton Stud for the immeasurable amount of time, energy and effort he has put into this partnership. Our students are truly benefiting.
It has been pleasing to see a strong mix of both rural and metropolitan families have their children represented in the teams. This is a vital goal of our Show Team as well as our Agricultural Program as we look to normalise Agriculture and make it accessible for all. Jorja Watson, 2024 Show Team Captain, and her Showing Leadership team have worked very hard to ensure all students assigned to teams get the opportunity to not only work with animals and learn the ins and outs of showing livestock; but where possible, actually see how important structure, genetics and performance is to the various industries they represent.
Sturt Grove Farm Redevelopment
March 2024
As recently featured in The Advertiser, Westminster School and Thomas Foods International have announced a partnership that will see the main learning facility at Sturt Grove Farm being named the Thomas Foods Centre for Agriculture for students from Early Learning to Year 12. As we see every day, the Thomas Foods Centre for Agriculture build is well underway to include new multidisciplinary classrooms, outdoor learning spaces, produce processing and food tech areas, well equipped wet-labs, shearing facilities, a wash-down zone, and a community Farm Shop. The shop will sell produce grown at the farm, from our community as well as Thomas Foods products.
We are grateful to the work done by Westminster Chair Emeritus Phillip Styles and governing council member for Boarding Steve Sanders who, in tandem with the School Council, have worked closely with the Principal, School Leadership Team, Agriculture team and many rural families.
Andy Malcolm (’06), Head of Agriculture and the entire Ag team are excited for the new facility to come online to further build on the strengths of our Agriculture program. Our students will not only be learning from some of the best agricultural practitioners and experts in Australia, but will be doing so with access to one of the best school facilities of this type in the country.
Thomas Foods Internation Managing Director Darren Thomas is a Westminster Old Scholar (‘90) and TFI has been a proud supporter of the School for many years. This partnership builds on TFI’s existing involvement in the School’s rural pathways program, which includes offering a cadetship, work experience and hosted tours of key agricultural operations across SA including TFI’s new processing facility at Murray Bridge.
Director of Learning, Andrea Sherwood, is already evolving the curriculum to maximise the benefit of the new Thomas Foods Centre for Agriculture and we will certainly hear more from our academic team as the project progresses.
The Thomas Foods Centre for Agriculture is expected to open in Semester 2 with a community event planned for later August 2024 (details to be confirmed).
Events
Community connection is at the heart of Westminster. Discover our upcoming community events.