Macquarie Anglican Grammar School

Macquarie Anglican Grammar School is excited to announce, in partnership with Australian Strategic Materials and its subsidiary Toongi Pastoral Company, the Macquarie Agricultural Pathways Program.

Macquarie’s Agricultural Pathways Program brings educational motivation through engagement, passion, interest and curiosity.

“This is at the core of what we are striving to achieve at Macquarie, the development of resilient young people who are ready and willing to make a difference in the world. We educate students to be all that they can be. This means, we need to meet our young at their point of need. This program allows us to work together to develop them as highly-skilled, well-rounded leaders of Agriculture”. Craig Mansour, Headmaster Macquarie Anglican Grammar School.

This multifaceted model looks to develop agricultural based skills/learning outcomes for students with passion and vision to lead them to a career involved with agriculture. Students will engage in and learn the concept of improving the landscape as they work the land so that they become leaders in their community. This program creates optimism for educational outcomes for students, by reaching for standard outcomes with non-traditional engagement models.

The “2022 pilot” of this program will see a targeted small group of students in Year 7, engaging in weekly farm visits to Toongi Pastoral Company sites (Toongi and Tomingley). Students will have the opportunity to apply their learning in a real-world context in areas of mathematics, science and technology (STEM), and agriculture. Students will play an active role in day to day farm operations and be exposed to all areas of an environmental and agricultural business.

Macquarie’s Agricultural Pathways Program will assist students in transitioning what they learn in the classroom into their real world, and to develop the skills necessary to be employable in the Agriculture sector directly or to prepare them for entry into Tertiary-based programs.

Throughout the duration of the year, students will engage in various opportunities to inspire and motivate their personal learning journey and gain access to crucial support networks within the school and agricultural industry. The non-traditional learning environment will offer opportunities for students to increase their engagement, passion, interest and curiosity thereby increasing their motivation for learning.

"Together, we are moulding opportunities for students who haven’t yet found their `fit’ in traditional education pathways. At TPC we want to engage and inspire these students, and expand the choices available to them, now and later in life.” Fergus Job, Manager Toongi Pastoral Company