The nursery is part of Hacton School, Hornchurch, UK. It is made up of 32 children aged between 3 – 4 years of age. The teachers requested that local veterinarian, Ray Butcher, come to speak to them about the Blue Dog. Ray agreed and visited the school earlier in the week to chat to the teachers to find out what they thought was the best strategy for this particular group of children.

In the event, the day before the visit the teachers showed the children parts of the children’s corner of the Blue Dog website on the interactive white board. They enjoyed playing the games and it helped to introduce Blue as a character.

At the visit, it was agreed that smaller groups (8 children each) would perform a drama about Blue going to the vet.
The whole class was shown the brief power point presentation about Blue going to the vet that is part of the Teachers’ Toolbox of the Blue Dog website. This helped to explain what they would be doing in the rest of the lesson.

The class was split into four groups of 8 children (there were 8 parts in each drama) and the teachers helped to select the pupils for the particular parts – Blue had to be particularly extrovert.


The theme for each drama was similar, but the children were allowed flexibility to adapt their roles. We took the opportunity to discuss how the characters might be feeling as the story developed.

All in all it was a very successful and enjoyable morning  - and nobody was injured!!