A Paraders Day was held at Kelmscott Senior High School to allow the school’s agriculture students to prepare ahead of the Perth Royal Show.
Kelmscott SHS has a specialist program that teaches the students involved about agriculture and the handling of various animals.
Head of the Agriculture Department at the high school Derek Edmondson said the Paraders Day is designed to give the sheep and cattle teams the opportunity to practice in front of an audience.
“The idea of the Paraders Day is to prepare the animals to go into the show ring,” Mr Edmondson said.
“So essentially the students pamper them, the cattle get washed, clipped and tidied up and the sheep get cleaned as well so that the animal can go into the ring at the Royal Show.
“The idea is to present the animal to its best, so judges want the animal to be well handled.”
According to Mr Edmondson there are two things the judges look for, which includes the animal themselves and the handling.
“The handling aspect is what the students do, they keep the animal under control and doing what it’s meant to be doing, and at the same time display its best characteristics to the judges.”
On the Paraders Day the sheep team had one competition where the handlers themselves were judged, and another challenge called a ‘drafting’ where the students would compete in teams to see who could get the sheep through the drafting range as quickly as possible.
“With the cattle we also have a handler’s competition but they also had a competition where they had to assess the characteristics of some animals,” Mr Edmondson said.
“The assessment of characteristics was cut a little short due to the weather.”
The school has a Specialist Agriculture program for students from year seven to 10, with the Animal Production Systems ATAR subject provided to Year 11’s and a certificate in Rural Operations running for Year 12 students.
The Paraders Day saw students from years 10, 11 and 12 participate.
