Kade wins at the School Steer Spectacular!

Kade is an inspiring future leader of our community. He is currently completing Year 11 at Vincentia High School and as part of his student pathway plan he studies a Certificate II in Animals Studies and holds a traineeship with a local farmer.

Kade identified at the end of Year 9 that he would like a career working with animals and worked out a plan to make it happen. He firstly sought some work experience with Stephen and Susan Nicholas from Nicolstoke Salers Stud in Nowra. Steve is the President of the Shoalhaven Beef Association and Founder of the NSW School Steer Spectacular. Kade works with Steve one morning a week and then attends TAFE in the afternoon to complete the requirements of his Animals Studies course. Steve, Susan & Kade quickly developed a great working relationship and after about 18 months of volunteer work, we were able to convert Kade’s volunteer hours to paid employment with the support of the Burraga Foundation and the Australian Training Company.

Kade now works a minimum of eight hours a week but generally works at least double this most weeks. He has almost finished his studies at TAFE and will hold a Certificate II in Animal Studies very soon. Kade has also recently been nominated by his TAFE teacher for an excellence award for vocational education and training. He will conduct his interview for this on 9 June via a Zoom link. Kade’s training and work on the farm marry well together and he is able to work on his animal handling skills and perform a number of animal husbandry practices. Some of these include calf rearing, giving vaccinations, drenching, castrating, grooming, washing, herding, transporting, leading and developing a feeding regime. One of the cows Kade has been working with recently had a calf so he will now be in charge of raising this animal.

Kade has also been an active member of Steve and Susan’s cattle team. They participate in a number of agricultural shows across the country. In his first appearance with Steve and Susan at the Kiama show in 2019 Kade won Best in Show for his work with Niamh.

He has gone on to win a number of awards and prizes and most recently was awarded First Place Champion Light Weight Steer and Best Financial Report for the School Steer Spectacular.

Congratulations Kade on your success.

In addition to Kades deadly win we would like to say a huge congratulations to Kade King who is currently undertaking a Vocational Education & Training course and has officially been nominated as VET Student of the year!

To be eligible students are nominated by their school, TAFE, EVET or local employers who have hosted the students on industry work placement.

Due to the COVID-19 in the 2020 Shoalhaven Schools Excellence in Vocational Education & Training (VET) Awards were scaled back to an online process. The Awards recognise the many talented HSC students the region is producing.

Story contributed by Maree McNeil from Vincentia High School. Published in 2020