A wet nose and waggy tail set one ‘staff’ member apart at a north Norfolk primary school.

But what Grace lacks in official teacher training she more than makes up for in dogged patience and a soft furry coat.

The retriever-border collie cross has taken up residence in the head’s office every Thursday to help children with their reading.

“There’s no magic involved. It just seems to work,” said Grace’s owner Janice Kingman, head teacher at Antingham and Southrepps Primary School, near North Walsham.

While a summons to the head’s office would normally fill any pupil with dread, older ‘reluctant readers’ are queuing up for the chance to spend 15 minutes sitting on a bean bag while they read aloud from a book held in one hand and stroke Grace with the other.

“I don’t like reading usually. I prefer playing on my PS3 but I like it when I’m stroking Grace – it’s as good,” said Mark Debbage, 10.

“It feels like she’s listening to you,” added George Isbell, 11.

Mrs Kingman, who took up post in September, first came across the idea while working at a school in Kent.

Assessing children’s reading ages before and after six weeks of the ‘dog’ treatment had revealed improvements of between two and six months, she said.

While there were many programmes to help younger children, there was much less help for those who still found reading challenging at age nine, 10 and 11. Those pupils then struggled with other areas of the curriculum, which all required reading skills, and school became stressful.

Mrs Kingman believes it’s the first time reading with dogs has been introduced to Norfolk.

She added: “Even if there is no measurable improvement, it makes reading become a pleasant experience for them again – and that’s priceless.”

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