A GOLDEN pooch has already helped Mulga Street Primary School students take time to ‘paws’ from their school work and is quickly becoming the most popular staff member on site.
Nova the 14-week old Groodle was recently introduced as the school’s wellbeing dog to support social and emotional development.
The education facility is among the first South Australian sites to adapt the unique learning tool through Dogs Connect.
School wellbeing leader Keston Green said Nova had already become an integrated part of the site’s wellbeing program.
“Even though she has only been here two or three days a week so far, it is clear to see she has already had an impact,” Ms Green said.
“There are quite a lot of parts to our wellbeing program which is quite involved and Nova has worked in well with that.
“It is clear she will become a big part of the school community.”
Ms Green said there was a big difference between a wellbeing dog and a therapy dog and there was a lot of training involved to prepare Nova for a school environment.
“In terms of values, it is about building empathy and resilience and we can do a lot of teaching surrounding social and emotional learning with Nova,” she said.
“While it is lovely for children to sit and pat the dog, it is not really what she is there for.
“She is there to support students with anxiety levels, but when she becomes a bigger part of each classroom, there will be lots of incidental learning we will be able to do.”
Ms Green said there was extensive training involved with Nova and both staff and students had been included in the process.
“Being in a school environment can be quite stimulating for her and she needs to learn to be relaxed while at school,” she said.
“It is not just about being responsible for a dog, but about things like not necessarily approaching every dog they see, talking about not approaching the dog too closely and where to pat her correctly.
“We have had those conversations with students and making sure they are observing and are aware of the dog’s body language.”
Ms Green said from next week, Nova would slowly integrate into class activities through a set timetable schedule.
Integrating well with the friendly playmate, the site has also become one of 600 South Australian primary schools to receive 36 animal-themed booklets free as part of the RSPCA’s Animal Wellbeing, Awareness, Responsibilities and Education program.
Year 3 and 4 classroom teacher Fiona Punton said the booklets were important not only for reading, but also the activities and messages they provide.
“All the books run a shared theme of empathy and compassion,” she said.
“They seem to be relating to the saying ‘putting yourself in someone else’s paws’ and the qualities they have learnt which associate with looking after animals are also important across the classroom and among themselves.”
Ms Punton said through using the booklets, students had been engaged in many rewarding and beneficial activities.
“We have explored the word empathy because nobody knew what it actually meant,” she said.
“They came up with the own meaning and used their definitions from the worksheets and books to create a better understanding.
“We also then learnt how they could apply those qualities in a real-life setting to tie it all in together.”
The school has also introduced a welcome circle initiative to build relationships between students and explore everyday values, while school pastoral care worker Pam Young is overseeing the Kimochi program, which empowers students to learn about feelings and emotions and how to recognise them.
