It’s usually an undesirable outcome when Year 10 and 11 students leave school. But at Macquarie Fields High School, on Dharawal land, it’s a good news story.

The school’s Technology and Applied Studies (TAS) teacher, Andrew Fairbank, said a substantial number leave school to take up apprenticeships in a variety of trades.

Mr Fairbank credits the school’s TAS courses, which set “high expectations and high standards” for giving students the skills and “self-belief” to succeed in the trades.

“Industrial technology; it’s exposed them to the higher-level skills,” Mr Fairbank said.

“The subject is really more than just ‘whack bits of wood together’; it’s about learnt project management and develop your self-belief and the ‘can-do’ attitude. That’s essentially where we’ve aimed and what we’ve achieved. It’s a popular subject.

“We lose a lot of kids here in year 10 into 11 because they’ve developed their self-belief; they’ve developed their skills so much that they become apprentices at the start of Year 11 instead of continuing into their senior years.

“Coming into year 11, four of them [my students] have gone into an apprenticeship already so they’ve actually gone from knowing the basic skills to learning how to use machinery at school and having basically a concept; little projects they can demonstrate to employers."

And the class of 2026 is no exception. The array of impressive major works in woodwork reflects the high level of skills they’ve acquired in a very short time.

“They’re a great group of students; I’m just very proud of them,” Mr Fairbank said. “Only one of those students had touched a bit of timber before18 months ago so essentially everything you see there is something they’ve had to learn in the last two years.

“They’ve worked really hard to develop their skills and they’ve worked really hard to produce a project. Time management and meeting deadlines and project management is the focus of the course.

“Quality of work, it’s always been high. People rise to meet your expectations. We set high standards and the kids rise themselves and pick themselves up to meet them.”

Bhashin Pokhrel built a poker table.

“My family, whenever they come over, we play cards on my bed,” he said. “I needed somewhere to play, and we had a spare room, so I made the table for the room,” he said.

Nathan Emmitt made an occasional collapsible table

“My dad and I often play board games; we don’t have room on our dining table because we have a large family and everyone’s using it,” he said. “We normally use an old plastic table for our board games which is not very nice, so I decided to make a nice wooden one for us.”

Talia Saumamao made a jewellery chest which has graduated drawers – the top is the smallest, and the bottom is the largest.

“I built this because currently my jewellery in my room is all over the place and messy so I need one place where I can store it,” she said.

Hosea Tufuga made a curved leg coffee table “for my living room cause there’s a big space and there’s nothing there”.

“When it’s Friday night or Saturday night; it’s like games night, the footy’s on; everyone has drinks and food on the floor or have to hold it,” he said. “Sometimes my dog will come running and knock everything over.”

Krishav Prasad made a timber coffee table.

“I needed a coffee table for my family because my coffee table right now is marble but it’s two slabs on top of each other,” he said. “I wanted to make it safer, so I created a coffee table just for my family.”

Bailey Pyao made a rocking chair “to go in my living room”.

“Relaxing in a normal chair is too boring for me,” he said.