Class of Scotch

In a longstanding partnership, students from the Marree Aboriginal School and Pembroke School have enjoyed their differences.

Story Kirsty McKenzie  Photo courtesy Scotch College

Melbourne’s Scotch College has given its outdoor education program a significant boost with the purchase of Fairhaven, a beautiful property in Mallacoota on Victoria’s north-eastern coast. While the Presbyterian school for 1,890 boys from primary through to secondary school has long offered a range of activities for learning outside the classroom, the acquisition of the 115ha farm bordered by the Mallacoota Inlet and Croajingolong National Park, part of a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, will provide new opportunities for the school’s students to focus on the development of character, life skills and sustainable living.

While the site needs considerable infrastructure before it becomes fully operational in 2028, the school plans to start some aspects of the farm program with short residencies in town and day trips to the farm in 2025. When it’s fully running, groups of about 65 year 9 students will spend 8 weeks on the farm throughout the year. The program will give the boys the chance to learn many skills far removed from their city lives and the support they are accustomed to from their families. Chief among those are keeping their accommodation clean and tidy, doing their own laundry and meal preparation.

The students will also tackle the basic jobs of caring for animals, alongside other farm tasks such as building fences, and learning how to light and put out fires, cut and split wood as well as plant and tend trees. As the school’s head of strategy and transformation Diana Murase explains, the program is part of delivering the school’s aim of developing “confident, well-grounded young men with a strong sense of identity and character”. Farm manager Perry Anthony puts it more bluntly. “It’s designed to make them world-ready,” he says. “For many young people their first taste of reality is their first day at work, but for these boys the program is a big step towards independence.”