NCH 0203

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Tuesday, May 29, 2012 NEWCASTLE HERALD 203

The Newcastle Herald’s School Newspaper Competition

Primaryentry#21:StroudRoadPublic

FRESH IS BEST: Parents JulieSnowdon and Nicole Cooper atStroud Show in April.

Small schoolstill has bigideas to growBy CODY LONGBOTTOM

STROUD Road Public School mightbe small but it’s growing.

Since 2010, students, parents andteachers have been getting theirhands dirty in the school gardenvegetables and fruit for students totaste and cook with.

The is being designed to be used byteachers like an outdoor classroom toteach students in a different way.

At the Stroud Show in April theschool’s P&C set up an old-fashionedcountry store selling relishes, chut-neys, jams, homemade cakes andbiscuits, some cooked by students.

P&C president Amanda Field saidstudents learned different strategiesfor gardening and cooking

“We wanted to connect kids towhere food comes from and to showthem that it tastes good because it’shome grown,’’ Mrs Field said.

“We involve students in harvestingfruit and veggies and did a foodsurvey for students to find out whatthey wanted to grow.”

A new dad at the school will soonget the gardens ready and teachpermaculture to students and par-ents.

“We are really looking forward tothe gardens becoming an importantpart of our children’s education.

“Everybody benefits from gettingoutside and looking at things in adifferent way including parents andteachers.”

Devil is in the detailsBy CLARISSA GOODWIN

ACTION: Stroud Road Public School students Layla Bosworth, Cody Longbottom, Shaun Scholberg andGabrielle Anderson meet Sassy the Tasmanian devil and keepers Genevieve Ripley and Kellie Mastersat the Australian Reptile Park. Picture: Angel Dudley

STUDENTS at a tiny school at thefoothills of the Barrington Tops aregiving their teachers a devil of atime.

The 17 students in years 3 to 6 atStroud Road Public School havebeen inspired to adopt a Tas-manian devil after they entered theschool newspaper competition anddecided to write about the DevilsArk project, which relocateddozens of Tasmanian devils to theBarrington Tops.

Year 4 student Gabrielle Ander-son said her class was very inter-ested in saving an endangeredanimal that is living so close tohome.

“We’ve learnt so much aboutTasmanian devils through doingthe newspaper competition and wedon’t want the same thing to hap-pen to them that happened to theTasmanian tiger,” Gabrielle said.

To research the story, studentstravelled to the Australian ReptilePark at Gosford to meet a Tas-manian devil and find out moreabout this endangered species.

Students interviewed mammaland reptile keeper Kellie Mastersand met Sassy the Tasmanian devil.

Ms Masters told the students thatany money they raised would gotowards micro-chipping of andgeneral health care for the devils,including worming and flea treat-

ments, specialised food and fen-cing at Devils Ark, the 500-hectareconservation property in the Bar-rington Tops.

Students at the school havecome up with some great ideas toraise the $2000 needed to adopt adevil.

They kicked off their fund-raising at the Stroud Show in

April, raising more than $100 sell-ing their own craft and handmadesweets.

“We’re thinking of setting up ablog to tell everyone what we aredoing,” Gabrielle said. “We’re alsoconsidering hosting a Devil Day atschool, where kids dress up indevil colours, holding a sports day,and maybe a cake stall and a toy

sale at our annual garage sale.”Other ideas include selling cut

flowers, making and selling Tas-manian Devil cookies, using theschool noticeboard and using theschool newsletter to keep a tally offund-raising.

In 1996 there were 250,000 wilddevils in Tasmania. Today thereare fewer than 30,000.

Celebrating a centenary of rail

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWING: Connor Bell, Lillian Greenham,Erin Bell, Emma Field and Hunter Hodge with historicalsociety secretary Pauline Ibbetson by the railway.

Picture: Patricia Oleksiuk

By ERIN BELL

THE village of Stroud Roadwill celebrate a biganniversary early next yearwhen it marks 100 years sincethe railway came to town.

Stroud Road ProgressAssociation secretary RodWilliams is helping to planthe centenary celebrationsfor early February and wantsto involve everyone.

“We’d love the school to get

involved as the history of therailway is tied to the historyof all of the buildings andfacilities in Stroud Road,” MrWilliams said.

“Stroud Road (school)didn’t really develop untilthe railway came through.”

The original station waspulled down in 1988 becausetrains did not stop thereanymore.

Mr Williams said StroudRoad was thought to get its

name from Stroud Railroadbeing shortened to StroudRoad.

Stroud and District Histor-ical Society secretaryPauline Ibbetson said it took15 months to build the 20-section between Dungog andStroud Road by hand.

“The men worked on therailroad six days a week andhad to camp on site and theirfamilies only visited on Sun-days,” Mrs Ibbetson said.