First lady Jill Biden and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, on Friday toured a British trauma-informed school together in their first-ever meeting.
They visited a state-funded school that works with students who have dealt with trauma and supports their mental health. The children are 4- and 5-year-olds and learn to care about animals as a way to develop their skills for nurturing.
“It’s very important to the foundation. As a teacher at the upper levels if they don’t have a good foundation they fall so far behind. This is amazing to see how far advanced they are,” Biden, a community college English professor, said.
The school has two families of rescue rabbits that the children care for, head of school Janice Eddy told the first lady and former Kate Middleton. Biden and the duchess sat with the students as they sounded out words and played with Legos. They heard from teachers about how the kids are learning to make the world a better place.
The children were reading “Greta and the Giant.” The duchess asked Biden if she knew of the book.
“I know Greta, of course,” Biden said.
The two met one of the bunnies, named Storm, and Biden handed over a bowl of carrots so the kids could feed the animal.
They also participated in a roundtable focused on early education.
The roundtable included four experts from the United Kingdom and three experts from the U.S., who joined via Zoom.
The U.S. experts were Miriam Calderon, deputy assistant secretary for early learning at the Department of Education, and Miranda Lynch-Smith and Katie Hamm, two education-focused officials at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The first lady is in Europe for President Biden’s first foreign trip of his administration. On Thursday, she and the president met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie Johnson. Jill Biden wore a jacket with the word “LOVE” on the back and told reporters it was meant as a show of “unity.”
The jacket made headlines because it was seen by some as an effort to draw a contrast with former first lady Melania Trump, who on a trip to visit a migrant detention center in 2018 wore a jacket that said “I really don’t care, do you?”
The first lady will return to Washington after the U.K. portion of the trip and before President Biden heads to the Group of Seven meetings, Belgium for a NATO summit and Switzerland for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.