School Groups

school group events at toowoomba highfields
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Take your school group to explore some local heritage in Highfields, Toowoomba

Ready to explore your own unique slide of Australian history and heritage?

Want to give your students a look at a living, breathing and genuine relic from Queensland’s history? Bring the whole class down to Highfields Pioneer Village, a local tourist attraction in Toowoomba, with a difference. Instead of telling your students about history from a duty old textbook, the team at Highfields Pioneer Village lets them dive right into Australian history, and helps them to explore Highfields, Toowoomba’s best pioneer village firsthand. Make your booking for your school group today!

The core program

1. Damper making - Dough making, open fire cookery in camp ovens (demonstration)

2. Puppet show - Animated wooden toys tell the story of land settlement on (in the Gallery) the Darling Downs, from 1840 to 1900 (suit all ages)

3. Slab cottage Housing - Grinke slab hut and Raatz stone cookhouse (1889) (guided tour), including homemade furniture, hides as carpets, handmade fly screen, open fire, fountain, vegetable garden, washing machines

4. Damper eating - Billy tea, damper, golden syrup at tables in the damper shed (Morning tea) 

Our extra optional half hour segments (choose maximum of three)

5. The Big Cow- Walk inside and see how this incredible sculpture was made, learn about it's history and the Dairy Industry. Includes a Butter Making Demonstration on request. 

6. Heritage chapel - History and current use of the Meringandan Congregational Church (1909), conducted inside the chapel 

7. Blacksmithing Working with iron - forge and anvil (demonstration) and horseshoe making 

8. Water wisdom water - guttering and tanks, divining for underground water, (participatory) boring and windmills, wood-fired pumps, log stock troughs. Manually operated geared water pump demo (suit Years 4, 5, 6)

9. Harvesting machines - A guided visit to the machinery shed. Stripper, winnower, thresher, reaper & binder, Harvesters 1838 to early 1900’s

10. Southern Cross - A guided walk through the Southern Cross Museum. Products made by Toowoomba Foundry 1876-1980’s

11. Toowoomba Fire Brigade Historical Museum A guided tour of the History of our local Fire Brigade and their trucks, technology and how it has changed. Fire Safety Talks can be included via prior arrangement 
12. Free time - There are many buildings with stationary exhibits to explore the authentic slice of Australian heritage. Pupils to be in small groups with an adult
 
13. Aboriginal Culture Talk - Didgeridoo performance, dance workshop and boomerang throwing workshop. This involves an extra charge, please contact us for a quote.
 
14.  Sheep Shearing- the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a shearer. This involves an extra charge, please contact us for a quote.
 
15. Transport Museum and the James MacDonald Bike Collection - A guided walk through the Transport Museum: featuring penny farthings, horse drawn transport and vintage cars
  
16. Queensland Energy Exhibition Centre - A guided walk through the Energy Museum featuring the history of Energy usage in Queensland and the very first electrical appliances ever made 

17. Horse works - Corn growing, husking, and cracking for farm use and as a cash crop. The use of draught horses as a source of power to work stationary machinery, horse whim demonstration. This involves an extra charge, please contact us for a quote.

18. Ride Henry the Model T Ford Bus- was manufactured in 1924 and originally used as a school bus for the Kilcoy State School from 1924 to 1940. $5 Adults and $3 Child. (minimum booking of 12 persons).

19. School's In- The Upper Forest Spring's School was opened in 1898 and closed in 1961, sit in school and experience what it was like to be a student in the olden days.

20. Coach House- Includes a Princess Coach, German Wagon, Sulkies, Buggies and an Ambulance Wagon. Let your volunteer guide take you on a walk through the history of Horse Drawn Transport in Australia. 

Please Note: If one of the demonstrators is away sick another segment will be substituted


Explore Australian history for as little as $8 a head

Explore a unique slice of Australian history for as little as $8 a head. Simply print out and fill in the form to the right, and contact us via: 

Phone: 07 4696 6309 (hours 10am – 4pm)

Cost per pupil $16.00 (this includes morning tea). Please bring your own lunch

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Check out a bit of Australian history and heritage, right in your
own backyard: 07 4696 6309

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