With National Pet Month just around the corner (1st April – 2nd May) Friary students have enjoyed different events and activities to celebrate the relationships between animals and humans. Many students have been excited to find additional class members in their lessons with teachers bringing their pets along to experience school life. Miss Bradburn’s puppy, Rupert, has had an early start to his education, while more seasoned Pet Week veterans such as Charlie in the library, Levi in Maths and Dennis and Winnie in P.E. have once again enjoyed the extra fuss and company of students.
As part of our careers provision, Year 8 students learnt what it takes to be a dog handler, with colleagues from Corporate Canine Solutions talking about their experiences training and using explosive detection dogs. John talked about how his dogs work in a range of different environments, from searching concert venues (including for Ed Sheeran, Little Mix and Liam Gallagher), as well as working in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and, next month, Ukraine. The students enjoyed meeting River, an eight-week-old puppy at the start of her training, Willow who completed a search demonstration exercise and Thor, a retired explosive detection dog. Sam Sullivan, Assistant Headteacher, said: “It was a great opportunity for the students to hear about different careers working with animals, and there was a lot of interest from students considering working in this sort of role in the future.”
In assemblies throughout the week all students have met guide dog Flora and her owner, Carol. Students have learnt about what it takes to train a guide dog, where she can and cannot go, and about the important relationship between her and her owner. In addition, all week the Sixth Form Interact Club has organised activities to raise money for the Guide Dogs charity. These have included a cake sale, a treasure hunt, a ‘Guess The Pet Owner’ competition and a dog agility competition. With the enthusiastic support from students, they are fast approaching their ambitious donation target.
Elsewhere, throughout the week our Sixth Form Interact Club, in partnership with Lichfield St Chad Rotary, led a string of fund-raising activities to gather money for their chosen Sixth Form charity of Guide Dogs for the Blind’.
Finally, selected students in Year 7 and Year 9 took part in a visit from the Exotic Zoo. This experience involved meeting and handling some very unusual animals whilst learning about their habitats, diet and survival methods. The students were very brave when meeting Eddie the snake, Millie the millipede and Jabba the bullfrog. However, the animal that stole the show was Melon the adorable armadillo.
Demi, one of the Exotic Zoo Handlers, said: “It was fantastic to see the students who were more anxious at the beginning of the session gradually engaging, becoming more interested in seeing the animals, and then finally plucking up the courage to touch or hold them.”
