Our School Dog

Ratcher is now an established member of our school team and is a great hit with the children. On a daily basis Ratcher helps groups or individuals with many jobs but he especially enjoys sessions where the children read to him.

Research into dogs in classrooms has found that as well as being a therapeutic aid for teaching children about kindness and empathy, they also offer great reading support. They won’t laugh or criticise when a child makes a mistake and they provide motivation and an incentive for reluctant readers to start reading for fun. Some research discovered that children’s blood pressure and stress levels decrease when they read to a dog!

Whatever he is doing, Ratcher makes the children laugh and of course he is always supervised by teaching staff.