Year 10 student Jake Cracknell and classmate Hamish McLachlan, year 11, came home medallists in the regional World Skills Vet in Schools (VETiS) Primary Industries competition at Farrer High School in Tamworth on November 24.

Jake took home the gold with Hamish right behind him with second place.

Both young men will compete at the World Skills VETiS nationals in Melbourne next July.

Head teacher agriculture Deb Snaith nominated both students for their experience.

“Cause we come off farms, really,” Hamish said.

“You had to know what you were doing,” Jake added.

“If you went down and you didn’t know how to drive a tractor, you wouldn’t do any good.”

The Macintyre students competed against a girl from Woodenbong and two boys from Tamworth to complete a comprehensive list of tasks.

Hamish said they felt pretty good when they were handed the list.

“It’s just stuff you do on a day-to-day basis on a farm,” he said.

They dealt with tractor work, cattle management techniques, equipment calibration and application, paperwork, fence repair and wire knotting, and attention to work, health and safety.

Each task was graded, and awards was based on the highest points totals.

Deb said though the competition is heavily skills-based, reading labels and keeping records was critical to their evaluation.

“It’s all skills-based, but it’s not so much book-work knowledge, but there’s a big focus on safety work,” Deb said.

“Every activity, they had to do safety audit, a risk assessment, and they have to do that written, and it definitely helps when kids are better with their literacy.”

She said she was thrilled two Macintyre students scooped the top awards.

“Two years ago we got silver with James Ballinger,” Deb said.

“A Farrer boy beat James, so we beat Farrer this time, so we were pretty happy.”

Jake and Hamish thanked Deb for taking them to the competition and said they would have work to do for nationals next year.

“There’s certain knots they do in the nationals, like say, you do an old-double loop up there, they won’t pass it,” Jack said.

“You got to do a speed knot, all those special knots for your fencing.

“We’ll probably have to practice a lot more things.”