‘Growing the Future’ at Terang College

Will Vangeninden knows giving his students the opportunity to work outside and tackle hands-on activities will not only benefit them, but also the wider community.

Will Vangeninden knows giving his students at Terang College the opportunity to work outside and tackle hands-on activities will not only benefit them, but also the wider community.

After beginning his teaching career in 2010, Will took a short hiatus, and began taking up odd jobs on farms in his area while looking after his kids, before a former colleague reached out to him with an opportunity at Terang at the start of 2023.

“An old colleague of mine is the principal here, and she had an opportunity in the wellbeing space, just trying to re-engage students into school, and one of the pathways to do this was through revegetating a wetlands area at the back of the school and to start up an aquaponics program,” he said.

“There are plenty of kids that are engaged in it because it’s a hands-on program … we’re doing things like botany, the Cows Create Careers program, and want to develop an indigenous edible sensory garden at some stage this year.”

Agriculture teacher Will Vangeninden with students at Terang College.

Terang College has launched a ‘Growing the Future’ initiative, aimed at engaging students further in agriculture and broadening their view on career options in the industry.

“We want them to see that agriculture isn’t just sitting on the back of the tractor. There’s so much industry involved and so many avenues they can go down to be a part of that environment,” Will said.

“There’s pasture development, land maintenance, looking after your stock and crops, mechanics, agronomists, there’s a lot of different fields they can go into.”

The next step for Will is to connect students with farms and placements, and he said local farmers were on board to support the students in developing their knowledge.

“It’s not just about Terang or Terang College, it’s about the wider region as well. We’re really trying to push agriculture in the area, because we lose a lot of kids who don’t see it as a future, and we need them to see it as a career.”