Meet Autumn and Beau the two Sunderland school dogs helping to improve attendance, behaviour and wellbeing

Labradoodles Autumn and Beau have been having a really positive impact at St Leonard's Primary School in Sunderland.

Transcript

00:00Okay, can you just give me a bit of an overview of how what Autumn and Boa used at the school

00:19with the kids in place? So the dogs have been working at the school for a number of years

00:23and they've improved in attendance. We've got a couple of children whose attendance was

00:29quite poor at school and the more that when the dogs were integrated we used them to get the

00:37children into school and start helping out with little jobs. Our year six children take them out

00:45at break time and then at lunchtime myself and another member of staff take a couple of children

00:51with special education needs off-site and that just helps with their emotional and social skills

00:59and they struggle sometimes during unstructured times so the dogs will help them feel more calm.

01:07When they've gone out into the classrooms it really helps the children feel quite calm and quiet

01:14because they know that obviously they have to be quite quiet around the dogs and they've just

01:20really made a massive improvement all around in school. Our younger children who aren't quite

01:25confident readers they will be encouraged to read to the dogs and that really helps them

01:30overall so we love having the dogs at St Leonard's and it really improves staff well-being

01:35as well. Are they just seen as one of the team? Yes absolutely they've got their own staff badges

01:39um and yeah they're definitely one of the team. Granny as she stood by the jeweler's shop just all in black

01:46then she prompted what are you doing following me i just i them were so shocked he couldn't form a

01:52sentence well she said whatever you're doing here you'll have you'll have the cops on us in no time

01:58we'd better get out of here quick jump on but i can't then we've got about 30 seconds before that

02:04okay then joy how does having the dogs at school help you then so obviously if i was upset or

02:11maybe down if the dog came in i'd get a lot more tired and happy so it made you more positive

02:16about school yeah okay and how have the dogs helped you um whenever i'm worried they come out of

02:22school i'll know that the dogs are going to be there because it counts as down yourself like whenever

02:28i'm like anxious or something and i don't think the classroom is like i have much more support

02:32on them or something just like help us calm down and have the dogs helped you as well um yeah there's

02:38been a couple times that i've got really stressed out and really angry and the dogs have just been there

02:43and supported us even though they can't speak or anything they're just there and i know i can just

02:50express my feelings and there's a dog a bit is the school a better place for having the dogs here