Teacher’s dogs in classroom?

[Sunnyday14558]

Our son starts school in September. We had a meeting this evening with the new class teacher and fellow parents and the teacher dropped on that she has two sausage dogs. She said she brings one into class and is going to bring the second into class next week and ‘hopes he gets on with the kids’. All the fellow parents made a lot of ‘awww’ sounds but honestly I was a bit surprised.
is this normal in schools? She also said that if any parents were uncomfortable she’d try and work something out. I’m nervous around dogs but mostly because I have a four year old boy who doesn’t have experience being around them. I feel in an awkward situation where I don’t want to be ‘that’ parent if I say I’m not happy but equally, maybe it’s ok? So confused

I think it's hugely unwise with 30 4yo's and can't imagine it would be positive for the dogs either. I like dogs, we have one of our own, I would never have let grandson have unsupervised access to our dog at 4 even though I trust the dog. Even at 7 I watch him and he knows the rules don't wake the dog, don't feed the dog and don't disturb the dog even if awake if in her bed.
Four year old's are unpredictable, they don't have the ability to read how a dog might be feeling, they might inadvertantly hurt a dog and two adults cannot hope to supervise 30 children and two dogs sufficiently to ensure all are safe.
My own dd has terrible allergies to animal fur. I imagine ther may well be other children for whom a dog's presence could exacerbate their asthma and ecxema. I think I would be very unhappy at this.

So 0.28% of the population. Tell me, do you take your DC in a car? Risk assessment needs to be sensible and proportionate.

The risks will be much higher in the current situation surely. Much of the population doesn’t interact much with dogs at all. Here there will be 2 (untrained?) dogs in a classroom of small children.

So around the same percentage as those who are transgender.

Yet people utterly freak out about transgender people.

Perhaps they can “write to the head teacher” about that too.

Higher amongst young children, actually. I’m guessing it might be somewhat higher again amongst poorly supervised dogs trapped in a room with 30 4yos who are also getting less than the usual amount of supervision.

Around 1 in 4 of the UK population has been bitten over the course of their life time. I have a lot of sympathy with a parent not looking to accelerate that journey for her own child.

A risk assessment sounds like a good start.

School dogs are common in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Teachers have to go through training and the dog is part of class community. Extremely useful for social inclusion, helping kids who have difficulty controlling emotions and nervous reader can read aloud to the dog.

Its a great thing

You don't seem to get that for loads of adults and children, this wouldnt be fun?

Lots of people dont like dogs and thats their prerogative. Lots of people find dogs annoying and smelly and hate them bounding up and putting their feet on you, claws digging in.

Why are some people so determinedly blind to the fact not everyone fucking likes dogs?!

‘Teachers have to go through training’ is the key phrase here. This teacher doesn’t sound as if she’s undergone any.
I also presume in this setup there is a risk assessment and insurance in place. And I wonder how they manage allergies.

Which sounds very different to a teacher randomly bringing her own dog to class.

It sounds like you might be able to avoid the schools with dogs if that's not want you want for your child at school such as allergies, fear etc.

Yep.

You wouldn't get my son through the school door if he knew a dog was in there.

This thread reminds me of one of my primary school teachers bringing 3 sheep into the class room... on the first floor too. She put up some board and kept them in the book corner.

And somewhere between 77% and 95% of car drivers will have at least one accident.
The hysteria on here is unfounded. And yes, I’ve been bitten by dogs, both as a child and as an adult. I learned to do things differently. How do we expect children to learn, to develop resilience and independence if we assume the worst about every possible scenario and….remove them from said situation? They won’t.
It is a Dashund, not a T-Rex. Teach the child safe behaviour around the dog. A dog that size can’t do any real damage, teach them and they will learn. Alternatively, molly coddle them to within an inch of their life then come back on here when they are 20, wondering why you have a “failure to launch” issue.

I agree - demand to see the risk assessment - this should cover all of the potential H&S issues of having a dog in the classroom; a child having an allergy, the dog using the 'toilet' in the classroom, the dog displaying aggressive behaviour, a child being injured. They should then specify the control measures in place to prevent these.
As a dog is not essential to the childrens education, they need to eliminate all of the risks, not just reduce them - otherwise the control to eliminate the risk is to remove the dog

A dog that size can do a lot of damage - especially to a 4 year old!
Unless there is a reason other than the teacher not wanting to pay for daycare the dogs should not be there

Or the teacher can simply leave their dogs at home like the majority of teachers seem to be able to manage.

This is reasonable.
Also what insurance coverage do they have to cover any potential accidents that may occur.

Even the calmest of dogs can be unexpectedly irritated by something.
Children can be noisy, a class of 25-30 of them could cause sensory overload.

Completely unreasonable and unprofessional of her to think the children should have to adapt to school for the first time and her dog.

And if the HT and Governors don't help, Ofsted

You haven’t addressed allergies.

DS would be absolutely miserable with a dog in the room, eyes and nose streaming, wheezing. And that’s when dosed up on antihistamines and inhalers.

Does he have to leave his class, his teacher, his friends so someone gets to bring their dog in? Because that’s the only solution I can see here for him.

Dog allergies are not rare so it’s very likely there will be an allergic child in the class. How is this fair on them @Mrspatmoresapprentice?

Teach the child safe behaviour around the dog.

This is an important lesson. But one to be done with a child and a dog that's known to be comfortable with children. Not 30 children and 2 dogs, one of which has no experience of the classrooom situation (possibly none with children at all) and is likely to be very stressed.

Has someone posted this already?

https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/static/bccea094-8974-47f7-9431347f95fe8f43/Dogs-on-School-Sites-Guidance-for-School-Leaders.pdf

Awk not schools next. My wee one is allergic and just couldn’t cope with this.

Teacher here, my school has a school dog. It was selected and trained to be in a school environment. It’s a miniature schnauzer as they are supposed to be good for allergies. It does not work with R-Y2 and only visits small groups of Y3 and Y4 either on walks or at reading group times. It joins literacy lessons in Y5 and 6. The pastoral lead uses it for walks with children to have “little chats” or movement breaks. It only spends about half of any day around children.

Two dogs just constantly being in the classroom sounds a lot! Especially if it’s play based Reception!

Research shows that while around 5.5% of children may test positive for dog allergies, only 1.7% of them will show any symptoms at all. So yes, it IS quite rare.
Obviously if a child has a severe allergy that would be unfair but severe reactions are incredibly rare.

This is the equivalent of saying a child with a peanut allergy is extremely rare & it may or may not cause anaphylaxis. Even if there is one in the classroom known to have this reaction let's not worry as it may not be serious & merely cause a few breathing difficulties equivalent to an asthma attack. This means there is no need to worry about this child so go ahead class bring in your peanuts & enjoy them.

Rare as it may be, although not in my experience, even if there is one child in a class who has a mild or potentially serious allergy that is one too many to even consider a proposal to bring dogs into classrooms.