by Laura Knight 8

In order to promote ‘good’ use of technology, I needed to articulate what ‘good’ use meant and get to the heart of why this mattered in an educational context. It was important that there should be both a high-level link to school values, and a groundedness in the practical: thinking about how we could achieve civility, community, and an atmosphere which was better aligned with our perceptions of how the school should feel in the present, whilst developing positive behavioural habits for the future.

My proposal was structured around these three key concepts:

• Age-appropriate autonomy • Digital resilience • Ethical participation

To develop ageapproriate digital autonomy

Clearly articulated boundaries

How? Device policy and usage guidelines

Aim high with integrity To foster digital resilience

Positive structures and cultures

Measurably improved midful self-regulation and awareness

Be adventurous To promote ethical digital participation

Training, education and safeguarding

A robust competency framework: embedded into CPD and curriculum

Serve others

I undertook a broad range of actions to bring these three core concepts into our School.

1. I created a completely new approach to how students may use their mobile phones, including zoning, the articulation of expectations of usage, a sanctions ladder, a new device policy which led to our digital device provision programme, and a shift of expectations on staff to lead by example. 2. I built a cross-curricular and pastoral programme for digital wellbeing, delivered across PSHE, ICT, and pastoral sessions. I led assemblies and created resources for tutor teams in houses. 3. I created a series of resources and CPD opportunities for staff on their own digital wellbeing. 4. I led a parental engagement programme including a regular newsletter and a successful new in-person event: 'Digital First Aid for

Parents'.

Impact

This project led to a considerable cultural shift in School around how digital devices are used for learning. The School now has a language and a set of clear and well-established expectations about what ‘using technology well’ means for us as a community, and a structure for attending to those who do not meet them. We have a better understanding of how mobile devices impact upon conflict at home, friendships, sleep, stress and pressure, and mechanisms to influence positive change over time with students and families. We have a staff body who are more confident addressing issues involving mobile devices and better informed about the digital spaces and experiences young people live and engage with. We have a noticeably improved atmosphere in School, and an understanding of how device use can impact on social skills and civility. This is all part of an ongoing journey!

This project also helped me enormously in the development of my own leadership. I learned a lot about leading change through managing perception, shifting perspective and empathy. I recognised how important it is to communicate and share a strong sense of purpose in order to make and then maintain a change. I learned about the connections between behaviours and organisational culture, and how different people respond to rules and restrictions. On a personal level, it has helped me to develop the courage to be visible and creating space for my expertise to be valued. This has led to leading further projects and harnessing the power of positive disruption, both in terms of technology and culture.

BIO Laura Knight is Director of Digital Learning at Berkhamsted School. She leads whole-school work on educational technology, digital wellbeing, staff training in digital learning, and IT in the curriculum. She completed her Masters in Educational Leadership and her Level 7 Senior Leadership Apprenticeship in 2020.

Does having a therapy dog present in reading lessons have a beneficial effect on student engagement and development in reading?

A dog is anecdotally said to ‘make a house a home’ and while it is somewhat clichéd, I believe the same could be transferrable for schools: having dogs in a school helps to make a school a community. As a life-long cynophile (dog-lover), I have regularly advocated having well-trained/ behaved dogs in school to aid the general well-being of not only students but also staff. Then, after learning about a canine reading project based at schools in Utah (Stone, 2008) and its subsequent journey over to the UK through the Kennel Club (The Kennel Club, 2021), I’ve expanded my advocacy to include reading dogs.

As Head of English, and as a natural bibliophile, I face an almost daily struggle to pass my love of literature and the restorative joy of reading onto my charges or anyone who lends me an ear! As an educator during one of the most technologically advanced periods in human history, where social media provides immediate dopamine hits (Haynes, 2018), it is a serious endeavour to make the 'slow-burn' of a great novel or in-depth analysis of a non-fiction exploration appealing to many students. After a year at Berkhamsted, appreciating the overwhelming cynophilia of those at the school, I realized the potential to place my two loves together for an action research project to encourage students to become bibliophiles as well.

Before fully conceptualizing my research project it was important to consider the breadth of work that had already been done in the field. A large number of research papers and projects had been completed in both America (for example, Lenihan et al., 2016) and the UK (for instance, Hall, et al., 2016) with most focused on early years and foundational habits rather than engagement in reading at the secondary school stage. While a great deal of the results focused on reading aloud, noting that dogs are good listeners and don’t judge or criticize readers, there were also numerous transferrable ideas about the impacts on reading engagement for older students as well. Having dogs nearby whilst reading can aid relaxation, slow one’s heart rate, and even lower blood pressure, whether the student is reading silently or aloud (Intermountain Therapy Animals, 2019). There is also some evidence to suggest that improving reading motivation can impact reading performance, with time spent with the dog serving as the incentive (Guthrie and Cox, 2001). Initiatives such as ‘Paws and Think’ and Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D) offered a strong foundation of positive evidence to encourage me to explore what benefits Berkhamsted pupils might gain from introducing my canine buddies regularly into the school environment.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, we began introducing dogs into the school environment under the title of 'Well-being' dogs and then explored the impact of 1:1 sessions with these dogs alongside particularly reluctant readers, timetabling students with one of the dogs for 30 minutes a week during the 2019/20 school year.1 The initial plan was to explore pupil well-being through questionnaires as well as take a baseline assessment of reading age at the start of a 10-week programme and then again at the end of the period of time. Having visited the Institute of Education to outline my hypothesis for action research, I was advised to lower my ambition levels from what I had characterised as hard data and measuring progress to a less concrete, softer, but no less significant, impact of having dogs in school. Indeed, the Literature Review (Hall et al., 2016) I evaluated at the start of my project gave so many potential avenues for exploration as noted above.

These 'Well-being' dogs became a part of the daily experience of many pupils walking around the campus. However, those experiences were generally limited to offices, duties and drop-in appointments, as the dogs were not actually present in lessons. It felt like a missed opportunity not to incorporate these animals into lessons with students who were unphased by their presence. While my initial intention was to focus on tracking potential improvements in reading age encouraged by the dog, the aftermath of returning to the classroom in a pandemic required a shift in my objectives. The students’ well-being, concentration and focus became a new priority, following the potentially distraction-prone environment that had been online learning in the quarantine situation of 2020. Figure 1 – Studious Vera They would greet and 'pet' the dog at the start of the lesson or before the lesson began, and then interaction with the dog would be limited to one pupil at a time having a well-being break. If the dog wandered the room, pupils were welcome to 'pet' the dog, but not call her towards them or play directly with her. The contract proved an effective tool that ensured initial clarity of expectation, and while the dog’s novelty eventually wore off, the potential consequence of taking the dog out of the classroom, was enough to ensure students’ best behaviour.

Ahead of the lessons I also engaged the class in a baseline questionnaire that explored engagement in reading and reading habits (Appendix 2). Of students’ responses, an encouraging 59% claimed to read daily, with a somewhat concerning 15% noting they read only occasionally (Figure 3). While these numbers are unverified student responses, the tail (pardon the pun) of these occasional readers, led me to earmark this group as those students who might benefit most from an extra element of motivation/engagement provided by a dog’s presence.

The first trial was to bring the 'Well-being' dogs into two reading classes, a group of Year 7 girls and another of Year 8 boys; both classes were very excited, with a few exceptions, by the prospect of having a furry friend in lessons with them. At first, I worried that the dogs themselves would be a distraction, so to pre-empt this potential issue, all pupils entered into a classroom contract.

Figure 2 – Tired Molly after a hard day’s work Prior to COVID-19, reading lessons would have taken place in the Library

The dog makes providing a fresh and relaxing space for reading lessons coupled with the the atmosphere a gamification of the reading process with lot more calmer 'Bookopoly' but upon our return to school, Years 7 and 8 were confined to and more relaxing. a single classroom for a majority of their lessons. The lack of a change of space

I have enjoyed risked an added monotony to their having the dog. reading lessons; however, the presence of a pooch shifted this significantly. It was notable that students settled quickly at the start of lessons, fulfilling their contractual obligations, and over the course of the year there was an audible buzz coupled with a spring in their step thanks to the dogs’ presence. Because of the Covid-related disruptions, it is hard to quantify the students’ improved engagement in their reading beyond their own anecdotal offerings, as much of the year was spent online. At this point in time, the dogs’

involvement can neither be credited nor blamed for their lack of winning position in 'Bookopoly'; however, I am encouraged by both classes’ upper-mid-table rank in terms of books read and reviews completed within the game. While the success of the action research was not intended to be measured through numerical ranking as initially considered, I credit a great deal of these students’ post-Covid enthusiasm in these classrooms to the presence of the dogs.

This enthusiasm was quantified through regular blind straw polls regarding their enjoyment of their reading (using the traffic light system) and the impact of the presence of dogs in lessons. Only two of the 39 pupils regularly voted that they did feel the dogs were not helpful. My conclusions regarding their enthusiasm linked to the dogs’ presence were also made evident by control lessons – those in which the dogs were not present. Students consistently gave higher scores in terms of enjoyment of the lesson when the dogs were involved. In fact, when the dogs were not present, students would immediately enquire as to their whereabouts and noted dissatisfaction with the dogs’ absence.

To further assess the impact that the dogs had on reading engagement and progress, pupils were invited to voluntarily offer their personal responses to the dogs’ presence in class in February. Given the ongoing COVID-19 situation, I was not able to gather responses from all of the involved students, but of those who shared thoughts, their responses were interesting to quantify the impact the dogs had on not only their experience of reading, but also on their general wellbeing and engagement in the lesson. Pupil comments included references to the ‘calming’ presence of the dogs, the ‘nice’ feeling having the dog around for a wellearned break gave, and even helping pupils ‘to read a lot’ and ‘concentrate’. Many equated the dogs to ‘fun’, ensuring lessons were ‘relaxing’, and the dogs helped some ‘de-stress’, which I feel is an important element of non-screen time in a screen-dominated COVID-19 world. When school shut down, many students who have dogs at home even took to reading with their dogs during the streamed lessons as represented in Figure 4 (overleaf).

Once we were back in school and the dogs were cleared to re-join, I took a more formal questionnaire to compare experiences before and after the 'Well-being' dogs being in class and the feedback was noteworthy.

Pupils can be seen to be happier when asked to read to themselves with 22% happy to read to themselves after the time with the dogs compared to 10% before.

Fig 5: How do you feel when you are asked to read to yourself? (5 is Happy and 0 is Physically ill)

Prior to “Well-being” dog’s presence (Oct 20)

Post- “Well-being” dog involvement (May 21)

Fig 6: How do you feel when you are asked to read to the class? (5 is Happy and 0 is Physically ill)

Prior to “Well-being” dog’s presence (Oct 20)