Ten students from years 9-11, two agriculture teachers and seven sheep headed to Dubbo to compete against 33 schools from around Australia in a two-day competition.

Each school had been given seven merino wethers in term one to prepare for the NSW Stud Merino Breeders Association and Australian Wool Innovation competition.

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Agriculture teacher Brooke Cowan said year 9 students had been feeding and handling the sheep and six were chosen to form two teams for meat and wool judging.

"It really does show the effects of the environment on the sheep because they were going throughout NSW and South Australia," she said.

"You get points for both wool and meat for the animal and they combine them together to give you a placing."

Wool samples were taken from the six sheep on arrival and on the first day of competition, the students presented the sheep for wool judging. The sheep were then shorn, the fleeces were weighed and the school had to choose its best fleece out of the six for final judging.

On the second day, the sheep were presented by students and judged on their muscle and fat cover, then sent to the abbattoir and a final judgement was made on the hook.

Gunnedah High placed 17^th for team one and 18^th for team two out of 66 teams and Ms Cowan said is "brilliant for the conditions we've got at the moment".

They also scooped the "best presented school", which is judged on "how you present the animals, how well dressed you were, how clean your pens were".

The students also learnt about wool and meat judging then tried their hand at point-scoring the fleece and meat and placing the animals from one to four.

"The stud owners talked about how to judge [and] they made it quite interactive for the kids," Ms Cowan said.

"The kids were absolutely brilliant. They were a credit to them. They behaved perfectly and they took in a lot of information."

Ms Cowan said getting involved in agriculture competitions had countless benefits for the students.

"It gives the kids a chance to network with stud owners and people within the industry ... [and] to show their skills and gain new skills and put them out there in the sheep community if they were to progress any further after they leave high school," she said.