Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Emma Bartlett — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:58:37 GMT

Phoning round your drug reps is a good idea as they may be able to supply you with badges, stickers, sticky bugs and if you're really creative you could even print off your own stickers (i met a Vet nurse, vet nurses are amazing etc etc!!) One company used to do colouring pads (can't remember who?) and we left the pictures for them to colour in and return to us and we gave a little prize to the winner (actually we got little bags of sweets for them all as they were so sweet!)

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:26:02 GMT

Say what a nurse does, not a vet, that's what we did! Big up the nurses lol! The children we saw we SO well behaved with the pigs, but don't 4 year olds would be!

Good luck

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Nicola Smith — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:25:02 GMT

I've just been roped in to do a talk for 60 4 year olds!! I really like the idea of labelling the dog with names eg lungs!! Was going to take xrays as well. Am a bit unsure about taking a pet though the school have asked me too - thought it might be a bit too noisy or stressful for my piggies, and think my dog would be too bouncy for ones that small. I am hoping to take them some colouring stuff, and xrays and stethoscope etc. They want me to do a talk on what a vet does - hard to know what to say to kids that age!

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:08:08 GMT

Thanks for the link Emma, will save it for future use [:Y]

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:06:27 GMT

It's done! We survived!!! And it went really well We had a 20 assembly with all the year group (about 86 children). We introduced ourselves and told them about our job, then many hands flew up for questions...luckily nothing too bad! Did have a child ask why his sisters guinea pig died...ummmm?! Satisfied him by saying that even though it wasn't very old it could have had something wrong with it that they hadn't noticed cos they go downhill very quickly! Then had first class for 1hour 20 min, second class for 1 hour and third class for 1 hour 10 min. In each class we didn't have time to show them all the stuff we'd taken, cos they had so many questions to ask us! The teacher was amazed that we kept the naughty boy in the class out of trouble and quiet for a whole session! They've asked us to go back next year to do it with the next year 6 children!

The children absolutely loved my piglets, and were SO good and gentle with them

Am so pleased...but cream crackered! I've never talked so much in one day in my life!

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Emma Bartlett — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:53:29 GMT

A bit late now but for future reference i have talked about the KC's safe and sound scheme with the local school children

http://www2.the-kennel-club.org.uk/web_portal/

lots of information on here and teachers notes too, i think its quite good to teach the children about being around dogs and how to act around them as it may prevent a bite in the future

I also borrowed a great dane for one talk and the kids were so amazed by the size of him not one child asked me a question (eg Do spiders have swimming lessons?? Do spiders wear arm bands?? neither of which i knew the answer to as there is no way i am going near a spider to find out)

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Phrin Vernon RVN — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:30:47 GMT

[quote user="Vicky SVN"]

Caro, i so wish i'd followed your advice.

We've got an assembly for the whole year group (about 86 children argh!) then an hour ish in each class. I'm going to poo my pants!!!!

[/quote]

Awww! I would have run for the hills too! I don't mind talking to groups of clients, but if a colleague is in the room, I struggle to complete a sentance & go bright red!

Hence I am rubbish at puppy parties unless the other nurse disappears! Still not brilliant even then! lol!

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:16:46 GMT

Caro, i so wish i'd followed your advice.

We've got an assembly for the whole year group (about 86 children argh!) then an hour ish in each class. I'm going to poo my pants!!!!

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:13:43 GMT

Argh it's tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!

A whole day teaching year 6 children....why oh why am i doing this?! I'm scared that a) they're going to be bored, b) we're going to run out of stuff, c) they're going to ask questions i don't know the answers to, d) i'm going to go bright red and not be able to talk!!!!!!!

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Alana Dent — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:54:36 GMT

I always find Xrays go down a treat, of FB, broken bones, anything not the norm (but easy to spot lol) Also if you have a FB, you can always find something that looks like the FB on the xray and pretend it was that you pulled out the animal. Kids loved that, if a little grossed out. Also being this time of year, maybe a little stink on the badness of human food on animals (eg chocolate!!)

Oh and make sure the kids no, its us nurses that are the cool kids, not those pesky vets LOL

Hope it goes well

Lani x

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:12:25 GMT

Anyone???

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:27:37 GMT

We don't know times or anything, the school are being a bit of a pain. If they turn round and so no we'll ask another school!

Thanks for the help guys, anyone else got any ideas?

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Steph Phillips — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:23:09 GMT

All sounds really good - lots of good ideas for you there! incl the 'run away' one from caro Lol!!

How long have you got with each class? I went to a school (yr 3) and took the vets lab and my border terrier.. also took some teeth in a jar to show them, and xrays of broken bones etc.. also took a stethoscope too, so the kids can listen to the dogs heart :) they loved it! - sadly though we didnt have time to do any activites as the teacher said we had like 15mins before their play time was due.

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:43:55 GMT

[quote user="Caro Laithwaite"]

advice from me..

Dont do it run like hell for the door.

As usually though my carefully given advice will be discarded and it will all end in tears.. l shall be forced to say l told you so. eish some folk never learn.....

[/quote]

Haha, it is very tempting!

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

BengalcatRVN — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:47:41 GMT

I've done a couple of nursery/infant visits now. We did the importance of hygiene after animal handeling, what a vet does, dressed the kids up as vets and put bandages on them. Although you have to be careful when handling kids these days I did take pictures (with parents permission and only the ones where you couldn't see faces for protection reasons)

I took my cat and the other nurse took her dog and we let the children pet them, and listen to their hearts using a stethoscope. We even ended up doing a lunch time assemberly with 200 older children, with the vet taking questions from the kids.

We took colouring in pictures for them to take home and a certificate for them too. They loved it, and I got a thank-you card!

I now have a special school visit box to take.

Have also helped the brownies get their animal care badge by teaching them simple first aid tasks.

:o)

Although Caro's advice to run for the door sounds like a good idea! Does it work in other circumstances too?

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Caro Laithwaite VN — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:06:11 GMT

advice from me..

Dont do it run like hell for the door.

As usually though my carefully given advice will be discarded and it will all end in tears.. l shall be forced to say l told you so. eish some folk never learn.....

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:55:09 GMT

Some fab ideas there, thanks. There are 3 classes, don't know how many children as yet. We thought could do a short talk for the whole lot, then go into each class to do activities with them. I'm going to be SO nervous!

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Erica Huggins — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:37:17 GMT

I have done talks for various aged children and always find that if you have a pet with you, it always gives you something to fall back on. You have to inform the school though because they have to informal all the kids parents as some are allergic or are very frightened etc.

I find getting them to do things always works out best, their attention span is very short. How many of them are there? I once had over 30 kids on my own so decided to split them into small groups and made like a circuit of tasks to do and every 10mins swap over. Their fav task was a mock up vet exam, were iI printed a basic picture of a dog and labeled things like nose,eyes,ears,heart, lungs,nails,bottom, skin, the children each got to show me how they though they would look/examine each one of the items on my dog. So for example one child would pick heart, then I would say 'how does the vet listen to the dogs heart' and promt them with my stethescope and the would pretend to listen to the heart.

The other tasks included- food for rabbits- like above and I took in small sealed bags of various food, such as different bird seed, dog biccies, cat biccies and treats, carrots, chocolate bars and of course rabbit mix.

Another task Ig ot the children to draw a perfect house for a hamster/rat/rabbit etc ( some of their ideas were quite funny)

I also make my own 'operation' game. I printed a picture of a dog off and cut out all the shapes and placed onto of the operation game.

Bandage materials are brilliant as well as hats,masks, gloves and gowns. Getting dressed for theatre is always amusing.

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Vicky RVN — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:47:21 GMT

I love the idea of the what they should/should not eat pics! We were thinking of doing some sort of competition for them, like making masks, what do you think? We were also thinking of taking my pigs in, and maybe the vets soppy lab of the school will allow it. I like the idea of taking bandage materials and stuffed toys for them to bandage too.

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Kay Eminson — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:28:39 GMT

I did a talk at the school where my mum works but that was for year 3 children and I took a kitten in that I was hand rearing.

My mum worked with year 6 kids for round 10 years, all i can say about them is they can get bored easily and can be quite cocky sometimes lol They seemed to respond better when you didnt treat them like little kids?

So I would say give them activites to do to keep their minds going, not too sure about fly strike pictures though?

Good luck though

Re: Doing a talk for year 6 children...

Shelly vn — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:49:19 GMT

How about cutiing out loads of pictures of different foods, some suitable for rabbits and some not so! Then get the kids to sort them into which ones are good for rabbits and which are not. Think it could be quite interesting to see what they say!