Murchison Area School students got the chance to learn some butchery skills earlier this year when an entire deer was donated by a local family.
Deputy principal Sam Dearlove says the idea came about as part of the TOSI Tournament – an area school competition for rural schools in the Top of the South.
“Part of that tournament is about culture and arts, so the students do some cooking - the challenge was to cook a meal on a BBQ sourced from your local area in the wild, so they were looking for some venison back steaks.”
Senior student Tayne and Jack Collins went out with their dad hunting for the deer, bringing it to school the following day.
“It spawned into this, “big picture” learning, where we took students through the process of skinning, breaking it down and then mincing parts of it,” Sam says.
All classes were told about the opportunity, and those students who wanted to, were welcome to take a closer look and get involved, should they wish.
“It worked amazingly, it was this fantastic thing,” enthuses Sam. “A deer was shot in the wild, brought in the next day, the Year 9s helped skin it and broke it down into all the different cuts of meat and the hospitality class helped mince what was left.
Sam says the animal continues to provide for students to learn with.
“We got heaps of steak, and about 40 500g packs of mince that hospo students get to use to make burgers, nachos, and lasagne.
He says the learning has had a flow-on effect, with other community members reaching out wanting to teach and get involved with helping to teach these valuable practical skills.
“In the session there was so much learning – there’s biology, anatomy, knife skills, sustainability, all these different curriculums that we are highlighting without saying ‘the lesson today is on ‘this subject’’.
“We have a lot of practical, hunty, farmy kids and it was a real time to shine for them… For most of the kids it’s nothing out of the ordinary, but we could talk about the parts of the animal and the different muscle groups.
“The kids were really engaged, they loved it. It’s very cool, this is a really normal, natural thing to do, just like we harvest veges from our garden.”
“Do I think it’s a big deal? No, do I think it’s really cool? Absolutely. There was a lot of really good feedback from our community. Historically, our community have been very pro – getting the kids outdoors and hands-on.”
Sam says it provided a real “bush to plate” experience, that both the school and its students value.
