Bereavement

As a new teacher, you may, tragically, have to cope either the death of a pupil or teacher at your school, or a death in the family of a pupil.

Either form of bereavement will be difficult, especially if you are coping with your own feelings of sadness and loss as well as those of your pupils.

If a pupil in your class has lost a member of his or her family

For a child or young person, a bereavement can be an overwhelmingly sad and difficult time. Each young person differs in exactly how they respond to this experience, and in what they need of others as they live through the their bereavement. It’s an evolving process, happening over extended periods of time, and so you will see many shifts; sometimes dramatic and sometimes subtle.

Some pupils may clearly express their emotional distress. School might become the one place in their lives they feel is untouched by the death and they ‘cope’ remarkably well. You might not notice very much difference in performance, attitude or behaviour. For others, the effects may clearly manifest in behavioural and attitudinal changes. For more information about the range of reactions you might encounter and how to help, see the Cruse Bereavement Care website.

Always tell the rest of the class that the pupil has been bereaved and ask them to treat the child sympathetically; it may make him/her uncomfortable if you do so while he/she is present, so send him/her on an errand before you address the rest of the class.

It’s also a good idea to speak to the pupil, in private, to say briefly how sorry you are. While this may be painful for the pupil, it is better than having him/her think that you don’t know or care about his/her loss.

Remember that if the pupil loses a member of the family in the months leading up to his/her external exams or school entrance exams, this is often borne in mind before their final grade is decided if the appropriate persons are notified. 

Finally, remember that you are not a therapist. Some schools have access to a school counsellor or even bereavement counselling for pupils - ask your colleagues or your headteacher if this may be available to your pupil.

When there's a death of a pupil or member of staff in your school

A death in the school might be of a pupil, a teacher or other staff. Every circumstance of death will be different. It’s especially important for you to be able to manage this situation effectively.

The Cruse website offers advice on how to manage this situation; it suggests establishing your goal. Are you aiming to manage the impact of the death in the school as sensitively as possible whilst enabling the life of the school to continue as normal, or are you aiming to contain anger and emotion and defuse a potentially volatile situation, for example? 

It then suggests you ‘map’ the situation.

• How are the staff with this? (What thoughts and feelings do people want to share? Who is likely to be most vulnerable at this time?) 
• Who is affected? (How widely known was the person in the school? What was the nature of the death and how public is this knowledge?)
• Student reactions (What are student reactions at present? What do we know about reactions to expect in students?) 
• Communication and support (What mechanisms for communication do we already have in place and can draw on? What existing supports can we call on internally/externally?)  
• Sources of information (What do we have to hand already? What else might we get hold of? 

Telling the pupils

How you inform your pupils about a death depends on their age; the older the pupils are, the more they realise the enormity of what has happened and the more distressed they will become. Try and keep the atmosphere calm and be clear in your language, avoiding confusing euphemisms such as ‘passed away’. 

In the days afterwards, secondary schools sometimes make a room available where pupils can go during the school day if they need to grieve in private (sometimes a bereavement councellor will be present). Pupils may also wish to write a letter of condolence to the deceased family – this can be a comfort both to the family and the pupils. Other suitable options may include a book of remembrance, planting a tree in the school grounds in the deceased person’s memory or writing an article about him or her in the school magazine.

Useful websites

• http://www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/