Least said, soonest mended

Journal of Early Childhood Research11(2) 95 –107

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Least said, soonest mended?: Responses of primary school teachers to the perceived support needs of bereaved children

Shirley PottsRegional Development Child Bereavement, UK

AbstractEvery 22 minutes in the United Kingdom, a child is bereaved of a parent, making up some 24,000 a year. An even greater number experience the loss of a grandparent. There is a limited, but growing, body of research into the impact of grief and bereavement on young children and how their support needs might be met. This article expands upon research with primary school teachers articulating something of their knowledge and experience in encountering bereaved children. The mixed methodology research includes quantitative and qualitative data that incorporate teachers’ responses to the fictionalised narrative of a bereaved 6-year-old. The discussion elucidates teachers’ confidence – or reluctance – in broaching the topic, highlighting the lack of specific training within teacher education for understanding and supporting bereaved children. Compassionate understanding is offered to some children, but many others detect a wall of silence, which, when encountered in early childhood, can have detrimental consequences for their personal, social and academic development. The article calls for policy and practice that will ameliorate this situation.

Keywordsbereaved children, fictionalised narrative, Key Stage 1 teachers, primary schools, support protocols

Introduction

On stepping down in his role as Children’s Commissioner for England1 and taking up the mantle of Patron to the Childhood Bereavement Network (CBN), Sir Al Aynsley-Green stated, ‘Our vision is to make sure that in every community there will be someone for children and families to turn to, and in every school someone who is trained to understand how to support grieving children’ (Brody, 2010).

A total of 70 per cent of UK primary schools have two or more recently bereaved children on roll at any one time (Holland, 1993). Every 22 minutes in the United Kingdom, a child is bereaved of a parent; 63 children a day and 24,000 a year (CBN, 2007; Office of National Statistics, 2010;

Corresponding author:Shirley Potts, Director of Regional Development, Child Bereavement UK, Saunderton, Bucks, HP14 4BF, UK.Email: [email protected]

466201 ECR11210.1177/1476718X12466201Journal of Early Childhood ResearchPotts2013

Article

96 Journal of Early Childhood Research 11(2)

Winston’s Wish, 2011). Although the argument for specific training for teachers remains unre-solved, children’s grief is receiving increasing attention and the needs of bereaved schoolchildren are finally being given somewhat more consideration than in the past. April 2011 saw a major UK conference on Services for Bereaved Children (London, 2011), and the Palliative Care Funding Review (/2011) heralds changes for end-of-life care and bereavement services. While this is prom-ising, it is also circumspect to note that 15 years ago, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) published the results of an initiative that found that separation an loss were major causes of anxiety in children’s lives; Oliver Leaman (of Liverpool John Moores University) called, at that time, for death education in the school curriculum to be taught, just as sex, birth and marriage are (Haigh, 1996). Around the same time, researchers at the University of Exeter and the College of St Mark and St John conducted an examination very similar to this cur-rent venture, where they sought to

identify how well teachers felt they could handle loss and bereavement and what sources of information they felt had been available to them. They were also asked if they felt these were issues that should be included in the curriculum. (Eiser et al., 1995: 32)

However, the movement from rhetoric to action appears to be regrettably slow, and successful initiatives are relatively few. One such typical effort is that of the CBN which, under the auspices of the National Children’s Bureau, began a campaign in 2006 based on the Every Child Matters2 agenda, reminding stakeholders that Every Bereaved Child Matters. The campaign, entitled ‘Grief Matters for Children’ (CBN, 2006), instigated an Early Day Motion (EDM) in the UK Parliament (2007), which includes the suggestion ‘that the Government should place a duty on all children’s services authorities to demonstrate how they meet bereaved children’s needs’ and ‘calls for train-ing on bereavement to become part of standard training for teachers, with courses made available to existing school staff’. This was a major milestone in the recognition of child bereavement and its consequences, though – as with the majority of EDMs – the motion did not reach debate in the House.

This article discusses the results of a research study in which all the primary schools in one local authority area in North West England were contacted and invited to respond to a questionnaire focused on the above concerns. Teachers were presented with five fundamental questions – the responses to which constitute the quantitative element to the data – and a sixth, optional question, which elicited their interpretative response to a fictionalised narrative, ‘Lizzie’s Story’, portraying the thoughts of a bereaved 6-year-old, endorsing McNeill’s (2004) reminder that ‘we all have to learn to put ourselves in other people’s shoes’ (p. 119).

Rationale

Early childhood is the focal age group given that this is a period of rapid development and immense curiosity, where children acquire diverse understandings of life and death issues. There have been critics who would challenge the requirement for bereavement support for children, asserting that such suggestions are based on dubious assumptions regarding the impact of grief upon children (Harrington and Harrison, 1999). However, such assertions have been denounced by more recent research in the field (Bowie, 2000; CBN, 2006; Holland, 2004; Lowton and Higginson, 2003; McCarthy and Jessop, 2005; Rolls and Payne, 2003; Tracey and Holland, 2008), and it is more generally conceded that young children are affected, often profoundly, by the death of someone close. Given that all such children will be expected to be in attendance at school, there is a clear need to examine the variety of responses they may encounter in their school setting.

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Some endeavours in this area have been undertaken, but McCarthy and Jessop (2005) make it clear that the field is very limited and further research is apposite:

There is a serious gap in research which can improve our knowledge and understanding of the needs and experiences of bereaved young people, particularly putting such experiences into social context. Such research needs to be both qualitatively and quantitatively based, using rigorous methods and community-based samples, including people not already in touch with bereavement services, covering a wide range of bereavement experiences, and drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives. Such requirements pose a real challenge to the research community. (p. 6)

Similarly, Lowton and Higginson (2003) discovered that there was an under-reporting of how teachers in schools managed bereaved children, and the same article suggested that future research should focus on finding the most effective ways of supporting bereaved children, their families and teachers. Lowton and Higginson (2003; whose article is significantly titled ‘Managing bereave-ment in the classroom: a conspiracy of silence’) concluded that supporting bereaved children in schools ‘is still an issue for the majority of school staff in the UK and other countries’ (p. 736).

Tracey and Holland’s (2008) comparative study of child bereavement and loss responses in schools in Hull, United Kingdom, and Londonderry, Northern Ireland, stimulated this present pur-suit, and as Tracey and Holland were each reviewing their own geographical area of work, I felt justified in having an interest in surveying my own local authority area in North West England. Given the similarity in outcome, it becomes increasingly reasonable to generalise the results more extensively and assume the picture is not dissimilar across other regions of the United Kingdom – although later in the article, some evidence of a possible north/south divide in terms of support initiatives will be alluded to.

There has, in recent years, been a promising increase in the number of publications addressing the needs of children experiencing loss of varying kinds. This corresponds with the advent of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) as a standard element of the UK school curriculum, with many schools utilising the SEAL programme – Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (DfE, 2010), which does include a component on loss issues – though only fleetingly addressing loss through bereavement.

Other literature exists – some of which offers practical guidance to educationalists, social workers or health-care practitioners – but there is little evidence that support measures for bereaved children have expanded much beyond specialist organisations. Monroe and Kraus (2005) edited a collection that contains a breadth of perspectives on grief in children’s lives with both theoretical and practice-based chapters from professionals in the field. Atle Dyregrov (2008) has produced a second edition of his 1991 seminal text, ‘Grief in children’. This, among all the literature, would be my highest com-mendation as it offers profound understanding of the child’s perspective and contains a sizeable sec-tion on ‘Handling death in the playgroup and at school’. Although a limited library, there are those publications that could offer a wealth of guidance, information, strategies and resources to teachers in schools (Boyd Webb, 2010; Brown, 1999, 2007; Duffy, 2003; Holland, 2001; Job and Frances, 2004; Potts, 2005). Such information, however, requires wider dissemination in order that practition-ers, whose primary role might not be bereavement support, could nevertheless avail themselves of these resources. Were issues relating to death and dying to constitute part of the curriculum, it is more likely that a catalogue of appropriate resources would be accessible to teachers.

The research project

A motivating element of the research was the realisation that attitudes to children’s grief have transformed considerably in recent years and are still changing exponentially. Child-focused


bereavement support charities and organisations are relatively recent innovations, and the first children’s hospice in the United Kingdom only opened in 1982. Clough and Nutbrown (2007) suggest that social research should be persuasive, purposive, positional and political, and these four aspects pervaded the intentions of the project. It is plainly persuasive in its endeavour to convince the relevant people of the intrinsic value of bereavement support initiatives for children. It is also purposive and political in calling for the empowering of teaching staff through appropri-ate training, enabling them to counter the hegemony of ‘least said; soonest mended’. The research is positional as a central tenet is to represent one of the hidden populations discussed in Iwaniec and Pinkerton (1998: 143). They suggest that ‘sound research is also important as a way to develop and strengthen an advocacy role on behalf of hidden populations’ (p. 143). Children who are bereaved often constitute a hidden population, despite their emotional struggles sometimes mani-festing in remarkably visible behaviour.

A questionnaire was sent to each primary school in the chosen local authority – 70 schools in total – and 22 completed questionnaires were returned (n = 22). Naturally, a higher rate of return would have been welcome but a response rate of over 30 per cent was gratifying and implied a representative sample. The research was undertaken within a philosophy of pragmatism with con-structionist ontology and an inductive epistemology (Denscombe, 2010). Some consideration was initially given to the utilisation of currently available analytical software in the interpretation of data. However, given the relatively small size of the project and my own preference for immersing myself in the data, the eventual discussion evolved from a hermeneutical analysis incorporating quasi-statistical colour coding of linguistic and attitudinal responses. The statistical analysis was interesting but not complex – so, again, negating the requirement for additional technology. The underlying philosophy of the research is one of pragmatism because

it allows researchers to be eclectic in their choice of methods. It allows them to mix methods and mix strategies because it judges research in terms of how well it addresses practical problems rather than how consistent it is with any particular ontological or epistemological stance. (Denscombe, 2010: 130)

Key Stage 1 (which includes 5- to 6-year-old children) teachers were targeted as children in the younger age ranges are the least supported following a bereavement (McCarthy and Jessop, 2005). This may well relate to the popular misconception that very young children are not impacted by grief because of their emotional immaturity (hence ‘least said, soonest mended’). Regarding the ordinal data, respondents’ ages ranged from 22–50+ years (Figure 1). Correspondingly, their teach-ing experience ranged from 1–32 years, with a mean of 17 years (Figure 2). These data alone offer a pleasing spread of experience to contribute effectively to the analysis. The noticeable imbalance – but not surprising, given the profession – is that the vast majority of respondents are female, with only two male teachers among the cohort (9.1%). All but one are primary school teachers with a focus on Key Stage 1. One respondent comments that she was a Teaching Assistant with responsi-bility for emotional support of children when required, while another noted that she is also Assistant Head. The questionnaires had been sent via the Head Teacher, not only for reasons of protocol but also for ethical considerations in the hope that a Head Teacher might have the relevant knowledge to show some sensitivity in excluding a member of staff for whom the subject matter might be particularly poignant or painful.

Responses to the questionnaire

1. Do you think schools should offer any support to bereaved children?

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Only one respondent felt that bereavement support should not be offered in schools, commenting that ‘teaching staff are not trained counsellors and I wouldn’t feel that I could do as much justice’. Conversely, another respondent commented decisively, ‘Most definitely – I feel that this should be compulsory’ while another teacher added the proviso, ‘If they have received appropriate training’.

2. Do you know of any organisations offering support to bereaved children?

Figure 1. Age range of teachers.

Figure 2. Years in teaching.


Five respondents did not know of any organisations that might support bereaved children, but 14 organisations were cited by the remaining 17 respondents. However, this does not reveal the breadth of knowledge that might first be implied, as 10 of the organisations were identified by just one respondent. The three most popular suggestions of bereavement support organisations were Winston’s Wish, Rainbows and a local adult hospice.

3. Have you ever had experience of a bereaved child in your class?

This query elicited the significant response of 20 of the 22 respondents having had a bereaved child in their class. This not only fully endorses the imperative for more bereavement training for school staff but also indicates a considerable number of children contending with the consequences of bereavement, oftentimes with little support from their school environment where so much of their waking hours are spent.

4. Have you had any training in bereavement support?

In contrast to the above statistics, only 12 of the respondents have received any bereavement train-ing, with one commenting that ‘some, but would like more’. Almost half the respondents have received no training and accompanied their negative responses with comments like ‘No – but I would like some!’ and ‘I would appreciate support … I am always aware there is potential for harm if situations are mis-managed’.

5. Does your school have a bereavement protocol?

Only 6 of the 22 schools represented have a bereavement protocol in place, leaving the majority with no specific policy or guidance in support of children encountering the experience of a major loss. This is particularly concerning as it carries the implication of reactions to bereaved children being randomly applied according to the perspective and experience of individual staff members.

Question 6

The final question offered respondents a short story to read, with the option of commenting on their reactions afterwards. The story is replicated in the following.

Lizzie’s story: the mundane and the tragic randomly intermingle in the thoughts of a bereaved 6-year-old

Sophie Brysdon’s had her hair cut. I preferred it long. I like mine long, but Mum says I’ll catch nits if I don’t have it tied back. Our Joshua didn’t have any hair left – not even eyelashes. If he’d have had nits they’d have had nowhere to hide. But I don’t think nits like hospitals anyway. Our Joshua was in Mrs Morton’s class, in the Juniors. I saw Mrs Morton in the playground this morning. I couldn’t tell if she was cross with me – or cross with our Joshua because he won’t be coming back to school after all. She just had a funny look on her face.

Sophie Brysdon keeps scratching her neck. I bet she’s cold without her hair there. Or perhaps the nits were frightened by the scissors and they’re still running away. Eeeurgh!

Miss Copperfield will be listening to me read soon, but I know there’s new words in this book and ‘sound it out’ just doesn’t work when there’s too many letters.

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Our Joshua sometimes told me the new words at breakfast. Sometimes he was mean at breakfast though and pretended the Weetabix was all gone, so I’d have to have eggs. I hate eggs. But he always found the Weetabix again if I got really upset.

I don’t mind chocolate eggs. Last Easter I had loads of eggs because it was when our Joshua wasn’t very hungry and was sick a lot. Even when he sicked up on the new settee and I was sat at the other end, Dad said ‘nothing stops our Lizzie eating chocolate’.

It was Easter when Joshua stopped coming to school. I was in Mrs Johnson’s class then. Mrs Johnson’s very old. She says so. I told her once that my Mummy was thirty-three and Mrs Johnson said my Mummy was a spring chicken. But I don’t think chickens live as long as that. I miss Mrs Johnson. Mrs Johnson calls everyone ‘poppet’. Miss Copperfield calls me Elizabeth and she’s got squeaky shoes. But I like her rainbow scarf. She’s got it on today. It’s very windy today. We did autumn pictures with real leaves yesterday. Mrs Pemberton puts our pictures on the wall – but only when they’re very good. My picture of Joshua when he was dead wasn’t good enough. Mrs Pemberton said it looked like someone asleep and when I said it was Joshua she looked so sad I knew it was a rubbish picture.

Sophie Brysdon’s finished reading to Miss Copperfield now. My turn soon. Biff, Chip and Kipper. Joshua says Biff is an Elizabeth too. I wouldn’t want to be called Biff though. It sounds like a boy. I prefer to be called Lizzie. Lizzie Whizzy, Joshua calls me. Well, used to call me.

Oh. My throat hurts and my chin feels wobbly again. If I blink really fast it stops. Bethany Price called me a cry-baby yesterday. She said her Nana died ages before Joshua and it’s not sad at all because now she’s a star in the sky and she looks after Bethany all the time. I know that’s rubbish because Joshua told me about stars. And anyway, it is more sadder when your big brother dies than when your Nana dies because your big brother lives in your house all the time and has a room and lots of things – but you only see your Nana sometimes.

Actually, most of the time I just pretend Josh is at home being poorly – and that’s why there’s just me coming to school. Like when I was in Mrs Johnson’s class last year. Blink, Lizzie, blink.

Michael Riley’s drawing on his arm again. He pretends it’s tattoos but we all know it’s only felt-tip. Michael Riley’s got no Dad. He’s not dead; I mean he’s just never had one. Don’t know why. He’s got two brothers and a sister though. He’s lucky I think. I’d rather have no Dad and a brother – but I wouldn’t tell Dad that. I mean, I do love my Dad. I just don’t like being on my own at home. I don’t mean on my own on my own. Mummy would never leave me alone in the house. Ha, Home Alone, I remember that film. I watched it with Josh. No, I mean Mummy and Dad are always tired and there’s no one to play with anymore. My throat hurts. My tummy hurts too. Maybe I’ll be ill like Josh. I don’t care. I don’t care even if I die. It must be easier than living.

Oh no, big splodgy tear on my paper. Hope Bethany Price can’t see. Oh well, I don’t care.

‘Elizabeth Donnelly! What are you doing? You haven’t written down a single one of those spellings from the whiteboard. You need to pay attention young lady, or you’ll be writing them at break-time. And when I’m talking to you, Elizabeth, it is not very polite to cover your face with your hands’.

In a critique of fictionalised narrative, Winter (2002) suggested that those who dissect such data should be asking

Not ‘Is this narrative “true”?’ but, ‘Is this narrative shaped and moulded in such a way that we feel it is trustworthy, i.e. does it persuade us that we might helpfully rely on the insights it presents about that particular situation to guide our thinking about other situations?’ (p. 145)


Komulainen (2007) contends that the notion of the child’s ‘voice’ – though a potent narrative device – is socially constructed. This is indeed evidenced in ‘Lizzie’s Story’, which offers a com-posite fictionalised narrative based on my own experiences working with children of that age when in a professional counselling role at a children’s hospice. Pragmatic and ethical considerations deem it impractical to interview a grieving 6 year old that intensely – and it is unreasonable to expect such a silent and capricious stream of consciousness to be uttered audibly for the hopeful researcher. The validity of such ‘data’ could feasibly be questioned – but the comments of respond-ents also reflect their own social constructs and phenomenological stance. Clough (2002) reflects on the implausibility of creating, through narrative, a character who ‘bears, simultaneously, all the stresses of life, yet such lives are lived’ (p. 64). Lizzie may not bear all the stresses of life, but there are certainly children for whom bereavement is the weightiest burden they have yet to carry. In considering my reflexivity within the research, I am aware of a history and a perspective that feeds a personal drive to see bereaved children offered adequate support – so I acknowledge a bias that I have endeavoured to recognise, and balance, in the course of the research. McGhee et al. (2007) reminded researchers that ‘Reflexivity is needed to prevent prior knowledge distorting the research-er’s perceptions of the data’ (p. 334).

However, it would be facile to assume total objectivity on my part, and I believe that an element of subjectivity enhances, rather than detracts from, the analysis of the data. Although not explicitly involved in the research, there are elements of a heuristic approach that illustrate my position in that ‘From the beginning and throughout an investigation, heuristic research involves self-search, self-dialogue, and self-discovery. The research question and methodology flow out of inner aware-ness, meaning and inspiration’ (Moustakas, 2001: 263). This corresponds with Clough and Nutbrown’s (2007) assertion that ‘our identity [ … ] is (to a greater or lesser extent) a driving force in our research foci’ (p. 82). They go on to question whether it is ‘intellectually honest’ to assume that we can separate ourselves from our research processes and reports? So, while admitting that there must be elements of my own social constructs within ‘Lizzie’s Story’, it was a useful tool in elucidating varying reactions from questionnaire respondents and offering some data for a more qualitative analysis.

Analysis and discussion

A total of 15 of the respondents had taken the time to write – some at length – in response to ‘Lizzie’s story’, and their comments offer a breadth of qualitative data that consolidate my con-viction that teachers are generally not unwilling to offer support to bereaved children – but often hesitant. Comments from the respondents ranged from ‘a powerful narrative. I’m going to use it with my staff to open their minds and hearts’, to ‘Straight from a Hollywood script! Not the thoughts of a six year old’. I felt duly chastened by the latter remark but was also moved to won-der how that particular respondent did perceive her young charges. As it was the only negative response from the 15 who chose to answer that final, optional question, I was saddened to note that it was, moreover, from the respondent with the most years in teaching. Perhaps I have an over-active imagination, for I then endowed my anonymous respondent with the bowed persona of one whose compassion and tolerance has been eroded by years of servitude to a profession that has seen multiple directives and policy changes, alongside decreasing recognition and respect.

The replies to this optional and more qualitative question were thematically colour-coded into four topics:

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1. Support needs of bereaved children2. Staff communication3. Talking and listening4. Training for staff and interventions

The mode was that of training needs for staff and possible support interventions (40%) with the next most significant number of comments relating to the importance of allowing children to talk – and listening perceptively (30%). Several of the respondents commented on the apparent breakdown of communication between staff inferred in the narrative (20%), and a smaller number reaffirmed the significance of bereavement support in school for children (10%). This latter theme could also be assumed by the responses overall and endorsed the considerable positive answer to the first question in the document.

Encouragingly, the majority of the respondents displayed compassion and concern in their responses, with thoughtful statements such as ‘this child needs time to talk’, and ‘she is obvi-ously looking for a way to express her grief’. Teachers also revealed an honest assessment of their own predicament in the greatest number of comments concerning appropriate training for staff, together with recommendations for interventions. One respondent noted, ‘If funding allowed, all staff should have at least a day’s training to raise their awareness, and heighten their empathy and compassion’, while another commented ‘a sad story, but I’m sure it’s a common situation’.

Some outcomes of this relatively small piece of research could be deemed disheartening – par-ticularly the comparatively small number of schools with a bereavement protocol. However, the overwhelmingly positive response to the initial question, querying whether schools should be offering bereavement support, suggests a significant change in attitude over recent years. It offers a considerable challenge to the prevailing attitude found in Eiser et al.’s (1995) research where teachers found

obstacles in including work on bereavement in the classroom. These included lack of time in an already crowded curriculum, that it was not a teacher’s responsibility and might lead to more harm than good. There was a general view that no amount of teaching can prepare a child for an unexpected and distressing event such as is involved in bereavement or loss. (p. 35)

While such concerns were understandable, it is encouraging to believe that teachers of this current decade are more attuned to the emotional and psychological needs of their charges. There may still be a dearth of training opportunities in bereavement support, but it seems less likely that there would be a scarcity of willing attendees were such opportunities made available. This in itself constitutes an enormous leap forward in the prevailing attitude and implies fertile ground into which the seeds of guidance might be sown.

However, the education, training and continuing professional development of teachers lies mostly in the hands of policymakers and funding bodies. My satisfaction in the evolving emotional literacy of a new generation of teachers is tempered by the realisation that an entire generation of schoolchildren has passed through the system since those mid-1990s calls for further training in bereavement support. The statistics are clear: Thousands upon thousands of children have experi-enced the loss of a parent in that time; some – like Lizzie – have even lost a sibling and many more have known the death of a grandparent. Some of the resultant impact has been recorded (Abdelnoor and Hollins, 2004; Fauth et al., 2009; McCarthy and Jessop, 2005), but much of it is hidden, surfac-ing in such cunning guise as school avoidance, petty crime, family breakdown, promiscuity and


mental ill health – so that the backdrop of unresolved grief is obscured by the presenting ‘problem’. Further research may confirm such connections, but knowledge that is already in the public arena should suffice to influence future policy and practice. Emotional, psychological and practical sup-port for bereaved children should not be reliant upon the fortuitous location of charitable or volun-tary organisations in a child’s geographical area. An examination of the CBN’s (2011) directory of services across the United Kingdom reveals a troubling north/south divide. The compilation includes 80 services in England offering support to bereaved children – but 64 of these are located in central and southern parts of the country. Clearly, this is a relatively crude measurement as not all services will be registered with CBN; however, it does suggest a variance in the distribution of services, perhaps influenced by local education authorities, Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) or even average family income. CBN themselves conducted a survey of support for bereaved children and young people, contacting all Directors of Children’s Services in the United Kingdom as well as Chief Executives of PCTs: ‘23% of PCTs reported that their End of Life Care strategy specifically addressed bereaved children’s needs’ (Penny, 2010: 2). However, the survey also revealed that few of the local areas had considered the needs of bereaved children within their Children and Young People’s Plan. This, despite the 2008 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Review including ‘children and young people who have been bereaved’ in its list of vulnerable groups (Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), 2010). Furthermore, a recent examination of bereavement care services by the UK Department of Health (DoH, 2011) stated emphatically that ‘key messages from this work include the need to integrate bereavement issues into mainstream services such as schools, and to target children from areas of deprivation and dis-advantage’ (p. 35). It is time for the rhetoric to be translated into action: for policy to actually impact practice.

In conclusion, Priddis and Howieson (2010) noted that a UK journalist (Garner, 2008) had reported that ‘teachers are to take the extraordinary step of calling for an independent royal com-mission to investigate why so many of Britain’s schoolchildren are unhappy’ (Priddis and Howieson, 2010: p. 162). No doubt there could be a proliferation of responses to such an investigation, with each protagonist waving the banner of their particular research interest – from nutrition, to lack of exercise, parenting inadequacies or the techno-society. My response, of course, would be that some of those unhappy schoolchildren could be mollified through some simple strategies of bereavement support. It is not possible – or even desirable – to eradicate all unhappy experiences in a child’s life, but it is entirely feasible to offer compassionate understanding and consideration on the journey ahead. Auman (2007) acknowledges the need for bereavement support in schools and offers a strong argument for its preventative role in safeguarding against future mental ill health and school failure. However, she directs the role of support towards the school nurse. This typifies the medi-calisation of bereavement issues where the inclination to pathologise grief conveniently absolves other professions of responsibility. However, I would contend it is the normalisation, rather than the medicalisation, of grief that is required – and this can best be undertaken within the environ-ment where a young child spends so much of their daily life. This is not to suggest that schools – and teachers – should, in all instances, become the principal bereavement support initiatives. Indeed, Packman et al. (2006) affirm that ‘school, and continuing with normal activities can be powerful tools that help children cope by modulating their grief’ (p. 832), so the provision of a familiar routine can be a support in itself. Education, around the topic of death and grief, which is accessible and age-appropriate, is a powerful tool that could equip young children, and their teach-ers, with a repertoire of survival skills when facing some of the traumas life will inevitably generate. This research project suggests that teachers are more inclined to consider, and take some responsi-bility for, a child’s emotional welfare than the profession might have been some decades ago, when

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‘least said, soonest mended’ was the widely endorsed adage regarding emotional expression. The time is ripe for policy change and practice development. The training of teachers could and should include an understanding of the impact of bereavement upon children, and a modicum of prepara-tion for the inevitable appearance of bereaved children within a school population. More detailed and comprehensive training initiatives could be offered as occasional in-service training days. Alternatively, or additionally, wider dissemination of the resources offered by the voluntary sector should comprise part of the content of a bereavement support protocol – which must surely be regarded as an essential component of every school’s policy catalogue. Gilbert (2010) suggests that saying nothing to a bereaved child, for fear of saying ‘the wrong thing’, is a form of moral coward-ice. Some schools and teachers are resolving to be more courageous. It is to be hoped such resolve increases, and many more young children will be listened to and heard.

Notes

1. The Children’s Commissioner for England was established under The Children Act 2004 to be the inde-pendent voice of children and young people and to champion their interests and bring their concerns and views to the national arena. The Commissioner’s work must take regard of children’s rights (the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and seek to improve the well-being of children and young people.

2. ‘Every Child Matters: Change for Children’ is a national UK approach to improving the well-being of children and young people from birth to the age of 19 years.

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