Touted as Australia’s biggest agricultural classroom, the Royal Easter Show opens to the public on Friday, with education a big focus.

With the Royal falling during the school term for the first time in six years, more than 10,000 students and teachers from 185 schools will swap the classroom for the showground over the next 12 days.

It is the first time parading sheep at the show for Macarthur Anglican school student Dean Krvavac.

On Thursday he led out his school’s prize winning ram, which took out the reserve champion place in the school ram’s division.

“You just have to get them all squared up, make sure their back and front feet are aligned and make sure their head is up,” Dean told AAP.

Dean now has his sights on cattle.

“A steer or cow, they’re 600 kilograms of muscle,” he said.

David Baker, agriculture teacher from the school at Cobbity southwest of Sydney was very proud.

“Very happy with that,” a glowing Mr Baker told AAP.

“They’re looking at structural correctness, they’re looking at length, width, depth of body, they’re looking at wool definition as well.”

Archie Shafer is one of 65 students taking part in the show from the school.

Despite a 4.30am start in the morning on Thursday it was all worth it according to the year 7 student.

“You get to hang out with your mates … doing stuff that you love, hanging out with the animals,” he told AAP.

School mate Jeffrey Sutton, 12, is equally as enthusiastic.

Both students study agriculture as a co-curricular subject.

“They’re judging the sheep they’re not judging you,” Jeffrey said.

Annabelle Aran, 12, from Camden is back at the show for a second year running.

“It’s just so much fun, the adrenaline of being judged, it’s just really fun,” the year 8 student said.

“I love ag, and I love working with animals.”

From the children learning to parade their animals to the sheep being shorn it’s taken weeks of preparation.

“We’ve been working on their leading ability, students have been learning how to parade them,” Mr Baker said.

Almost 800 students are set to attend educational workshops over the 12 days of the show.

“There are loads of agricultural and educational activities to choose from for every age and stage of life,” the show’s Murray Wilton said.

The show runs until April 2.

This post was originally published on Michael West.