CATHOLIC College Bendigo Polwarth stud is a key part of the school's increasingly popular agriculture program.
Agriculture teacher Dani Weeks said demand for the Certificate II Agriculture course was growing exponentially every year.
For example last year the course had 22 students enrol in Year 9 and this year 44 applied for the 30 places available.
For the Catholic College Bendigo students, they can choose in Year 9 to do Certificate II Agriculture, which takes up two elective blocks or the equivalent of three half-days each week.
Ms Weeks said this amount of time out of the school week allowed the students to develop a good understanding of many aspects of agriculture work, including fencing, propagation, animal husbandry and care.
She said the school's La Valla junior campus was lucky enough to be home to the Bendigo Schools Trade Training Centre's agriculture, horticulture and laboratory facilities.
"It is a consortium building, so it is available to all schools in Bendigo area," Ms Weeks said.
The facility, complete with classrooms, stockyards, hot house, a pavilion with show ring and small stands is the perfect place for students to learn about breeding and showing animals, and Ms Weeks said the school's Polwarth sheep and Dexter cattle studs were possible thanks to the ongoing support of local breeders.
A chance meeting at the 2010 Australian Sheep and Wool Show (ASWS) in Bendigo between Ms Weeks and her second cousin Geoff Kemp was the catalyst for Catholic College Bendigo's Polwarth stud.
She told him about the school's agriculture program, which had been running for about 12 years under the guidance of fellow colleague Gaye Whitehead, and he and partner Michelle Sawyer decided to donate four of their sheep of Homeleigh Polwarth stud, Derrinal, to found the school's stud in 2011.
The couple continue to be involved with the school's stud and ran workshops for the students on clipping, preparing and showing the animals.
The school now has 20 ewes in the mob.
"We aim to keep good conformation as well as high quality wool in the flock," she said.
"Each year, Ken Arnold, comes over from Tasmania and looks at our ewes and recommends the rams they should be joined to, then we borrow one or two rams from Homeleigh."
Year 10 and 11 students who are currently in the second year of their agriculture course do a unit called "Prepare livestock for show".
They make up a team that shows animals at the ASWS and the Bendigo Show each year, and also in 2013, three staff, five students and eight sheep went to the 175th Campbell Town Show in Tasmania.
The team also holds its own annual show at the school for practice and this year they will stage it to coincide with the school's open day.
Also last year, the school's team achieved its highest result of reserve senior champion Polwarth ewe at the ASWS.
"Our agriculture course gives the students real world knowledge and hands-on experience, and the students have responsibility and ownership for the animals, from when they are born through to them showing."
Ms Weeks estimated about 30 to 40 per cent of students in the agriculture program were from farms and most of them are passionate about pursuing a career in the field.
Molly Kennedy and Ebony Bayliss, both 14, are two such students. Both hope to continue working with animals after finishing school and Ebony said she liked taking the things she learnt at school and applying them on her family's farm, such as clipping the sheep.
Being a dual purpose breed, the school is able to sell the wool clip and has the wethers processed by a local butcher and the meat is sold to school staff. The money is put back into the agriculture program.
Ben Bickley, also 14, was helping other students clip the ewes in preparation for lambing when Stock & Land visited and he said he was used to sheep because the family formerly ran them on its Goornong farm.
"I like the hands-on element," he said.
