The Thistle - An E-Newsletter of Scotch College, Perth, Western Australia

From the Head of Middle School

How good was Agricultural Day last week?! For the last three years the boys in Residential Life have put the spotlight on their homes, lifestyles and the workplaces of their parents through Ag Day.  Last week’s Ag Day was a beauty.  Big machinery, the animals, the fleece and grains, the RFDS and the excellent video put together by Toby Egerton-Warbuton (Year 12). When people ask “What are some of the great things about Scotch College?” one answer has to be that we have Boarders.

agday1.jpg  agday2.jpg  agday3.jpg

As a young boy my family frequently visited an ‘Aunties’ farm. Not really an aunty, but a nursing friend of my mothers.  Out of respect we called them Aunty and Uncle. There weren’t any farms within our family but through this friendship we were invited to enjoy farm visits during school holidays.  We fed the sheep, the chooks, the calves, stacked hay, watched the shearing, watched the big machinery rumbling past the house and working the fields and we picked mallee roots from the paddocks.  There seemed to always be mallee roots to pick.  Those holidays were weeks of wide-eyed wonder.  I even got to drive the ute in the stubble paddock.  Life on the farm was so different to my life in the city and so were the sounds, the smells, the activity and the work hours. 

Without being able to express it, I could sense my personal horizons shifting and perspectives on life and the understanding of the dimensions to it growing.  I’d like to think that my ‘cousin’ who spent summer holidays with us also got a similar wider view and appreciation of the world as we fished, swam, rowed boats, skateboarded, rode bikes and went to the movies.

At Scotch we have 145 boys boarding in Years 7-12 from all over the state.  They come from rural towns, farms, Aboriginal communities, fishing towns and mining centres.  That is a large slice of WA’s rural life represented in our boarding house.  In Middle School we have 35 boys across Year 7 & 8 living away from home.  Ag Day was a great reminder of the world and the experiences our boarding boys bring to the friendships they form with the day boys and the possibilities that exist for expanding your son’s world views. 

I would encourage you to take a look at the Ag Day promotional video via the link included in the Headmaster’s article this week.