Miss Smith had an amazing time at the Dog Mentor Conference on Friday 26th January 2024. As a school, we won an Outstanding Impact Award for the our nurture work we offer the children using Bow. Thank you all staff, children and parents who contributed to the supporting evidence for the award.
The Dog Mentor programme is built upon the benefits of the human-animal bond by providing children with positive experiences with dogs that can help them educationally, developmentally, emotionally and socially. The programme has been proven to have a positive impact on children in all areas including higher self-esteem, greater empathy, more engagement with peers and better prosocial behaviour.
Following the conference, we are re-launching our work with Bow to support a wider number of children across the school. We have gained so many inspiring ideas to support everyone. We started with an assembly where the children wrote their 'Bow rules' for when she visited their class. The children's behaviour was immaculate! Bow, certainly, helps the children to stay calm and regulate their breathing. The children have also learnt a lot of information about how to be safe around dogs as well.
After the half term, she will join different classes across the school for short sessions. Year 5 and 6 have applied to be the Dog Mentor monitors, they will have various responsibilities to care, provide food and water, and play with Bow during break times. They will report about Bow's daily activities in a blog on Bow's page too! There will be a display in school for the children to write letters or draw pictures for Bow. This could be an activity to keep the children busy over the half term.
As a reward, the children who have filled their house book mark will be selected from Bow's Reward Box to spend some time reading, walking or playing with her. We look forward to sharing our future Bow work with you!
If you are wondering why Bow has not been seen on the school gate for a while, she has a fear of large vehicles and seems to have been spooked. We are working with a local dog trainer to try to help her overcome this fear. This will be part of our work with the children next half term about overcoming our fears! Watch this space.
Happy writing and drawing over half term!
Bow Award Presentation
