South Padbury Primary School has undertaken a review and update of the school’s Behaviour Management Plan involving staff, students, and the school Board. The new policy has been tailored to reflect current understandings about student behaviour and feeling safe at school and how that impacts student achievement, as well as the recent surge in mental health and wellbeing concerns in young people. Our Student Engagement and Behaviour Support Policy has multiple focus areas, one being student personal and social learning and capabilities, which articulates how the school supports students to develop the identified competencies and skills they need to build resilience, and manage their emotions, behaviour, and relationships with others. One of those strategies is to implement a wellbeing dog program to support social skills and emotional regulation.
There is considerable research regarding the benefits of therapy/wellbeing/facility dogs in educational settings. Preliminary evidence suggests that therapy dogs can enhance children’s well-being in a variety of settings from schools, hospitals, airports, and courtrooms. Therapy dogs have been found to reduce physiological symptoms of stress through lowering cortisol levels, increasing positive emotions, promoting engagement in learning activities and positive attitudes toward learning, reducing negative behaviours like task avoidance and aggression in the classroom, as well as encouraging prosocial behaviours and acting as a “social catalyst” to facilitate social interactions with others. Also, a systematic literature review by Hall et al. found that dog-assisted reading programs generally show promising results such as gains in reading skills (e.g., reading accuracy, oral reading fluency, comprehension), as well as more positive attitudes and improved behaviours toward reading.
The school’s Wellbeing Dog Program is designed to help boost engagement and improve the mental health of both students and staff. Once a week the wellbeing dog will be in attendance on the school site, interacting with students as required to reduce anxiety, assist with school refusal, hear students read, give comfort, assist with returning to class and self-regulation, support brain/movement breaks, teach responsibility, and encourage empathy and socialisation. Interacting with the wellbeing dog provides students with the opportunity to practice their social and emotional skills in a non-threatening way. The dog will be based primarily in TA 7 and the Administration building but will move around the school and be visible to students. Students do not have to have contact with the dog – it is an optional experience, and no student will ever be forced to have direct contact with the dog. The school can initiate a gradual exposure model to support anxious or wary students where appropriate. All students have been educated on safety around dogs by the RSPCA.
View the Wellbeing Dog Policy in the policy section of the website.
View the Rules with Ruairi
