“Can you imagine basically having a school camp, but we can access it all year-round?”
These were the excited words of Moama Anglican Grammar’s principal as he described talking to some of the older students about the school’s new land acquisition.
Last week, the school announced that, through a significant philanthropic donation in partnership with G&A Kent Charitable Trust, they’d successfully purchased 84 acres of Gunbower land.
“It’s particularly exciting in terms of the possibilities and what it means for student growth and development as a result of the Gunbower Estate becoming part of our classrooms,” Principal Scott Downward said.
He said that although nothing was set in stone for how it would be used, there were many plans and ideas that they were looking to explore.
“One of the primary uses is that we’re a school with a very proud tradition in primary industries and agriculture. So it is terrific to activate hands-on learning and have pasture for our students to learn with and through as part of their agriculture and primary industry studies,” he said.
“We also want to hold pastoral activities that focus on character development and the establishment of resilience in our students. We want to develop a challenge ropes course and a flying fox.
“Pastoral activities provide an opportunity for us to integrate with the local Indigenous people to undertake cultural learning activities. It allows us to take students out there for team building and wellbeing activities.”
The property, located 40 minutes from Moama Anglican Grammar, has been in the same family for over 100 years.
“The historic nature of the homestead is really exciting for us as well,” he said.
“The homestead itself was constructed in the mid-1800s, and one of our goals as part of providing access for student learning opportunities at the facility is actually to restore the homestead to its former glory.”
Through his previous work, Mr Downward said he had seen first-hand the benefits of more hands-on learning.
“I’ve seen the power of real-world learning opportunities for students and what that means for the development of the whole person,” he said.
“We are very focused on our academic program at Moama Anglican Grammar, but the ability to complement that program with character education, sustainability learning, Indigenous history learning, and the history of the region is great.
“We’re extremely fortunate to have just the possibilities on our doorstep in terms of how we can best use that to support the growth of our young people.”
As well as making the most of the land for the students, Mr Downward said the school was focused on being a good neighbour and becoming a part of the Gunbower community.
“We want to support the Gunbower community as part of this. So there will be distinct opportunities for the community, such as, over time, having the Gunbower state school interact with the campus,” he said.
“We’ll be looking at utilising local people and local services to support that as part of the restoration of the property.”
Ensuring they don’t negatively impact the environment is integral to the school’s long-term plans.
“We’d be taking students out in smaller groups to be environmentally conscious and sensitive,” Mr Downward said.
“We’re really looking forward to being proactive in the community but also having a very gentle footprint. We’re not looking at taking 300 students to the campus at a time. That’s not our intention.
“We want the immersion to be personalised and to have no real impact on the environment simultaneously.”
Mr Downward said the new land meant big new possibilities for the future of the school.
“I look at our kindergarten students and our Year 7 students and I just imagine their future and the types of learning that we’ll be able to facilitate and undertake in Gunbower,” he said.
“It's wonderful when kids get great VCE or HSC scores, but we want students to be confident and we want them to have resilience. We want them to have great attributes as they move into the world beyond school and this will help us get them there.”