Year 1 children invited a special visitor into school to end their unit of learning, ‘A day in the life of…’.  During this historical topic, Year 1 children have learnt about the lives and achievements of a wide range of significant individuals, including Florence Nightingale, Neil Armstrong and Sir Isaac Newton.

More recently they have learnt about the founders of the Guide Dog Association, Muriel Crooke and Rosamund Bond and how their incredible work around the training of guide dogs for the blind has had such a lasting and positive impact on the lives of people who are visually impaired. To teach us more, retired assistance dog ‘Aero’ agreed to become an honorary pupil of Eastbrook Primary School for the afternoon.

During the visit, the children learned all about Aero’s rigorous training as a pup, the special skills that he needed to acquire to make him a successful assistance dog and his day to day life alongside his blind keeper. Did you know that assistance dogs know that when their hi-vis coat is on it means that they are ‘on duty’ and when their owner takes the coat off, they are ‘off duty’ and can be as lazy as they would like? Aero also has such sensitive hearing that he can hear many sounds before a human does. Amazing!

The children thoroughly enjoyed interacting with Aero and learnt so much. The experience was made all the more special by inviting along some of our younger friends from First Steps Nursery to meet Aero as well. The younger children sat absolutely beautifully, intently listening to the information and were an absolute credit to their grown ups! We hope that you enjoyed your visit and will come back and work alongside us again soon.