Zack Riordan & Bailey Heuvel
We weren’t originally looking for a Trades Academy course, but Pip at school told us about Future Farming and how it was being offered in Golden Bay, so we decided to give it a go.
We’ve both really enjoyed how different the learning is compared to school. It’s super practical and hands-on, and we’re out and about most of the day. One of the highlights was the quad bike session, and learning the skills to build a farm fence has definitely been the best part.
Miriam, the tutor, was awesome, really helpful and explained the theory clearly. The skills we found most useful were fencing, using quad bikes, and predator trapping, as these will be handy no matter what we do in the future.
We’d definitely recommend this course to others. You learn great practical skills for working on a farm, and it’s also been good to connect with the Golden Bay community, visiting different farms, and seeing the variety of farming practices.
We’re both in Year 11 and will be returning to school next year. We’ve already enrolled in the second year of Future Farming because we’ve enjoyed it so much this year. If we complete enough credits, we’ll earn the New Zealand Certificate in Primary Industry Skills Level 2.