As schools and colleges resume after the summer holiday, one issue is certain. With a child bereaved of a parent every 22 minutes in the UK, many teachers will be faced with supporting a grieving child or young person. The Child Bereavement UK report (2018) found that 90 per cent of teachers receive no training in this area, so it is hardly surprising that teachers report low confidence in dealing with death in the school community (McManus & Paul, 2019). Teachers at every level care about learning and know that loss and grief in children and young people have an impact on educational progress (Elsner et al., 2021). Equipping teachers with approaches to supporting grieving pupils is essential, not only to provide much-needed support at a challenging time, but also to ensure that children remain engaged with their learning over time. Drawing on my recent research, when faced with a grieving child or young person, there is a need to ‘just say something!’.
My research project involved close collaboration with the charity Child Bereavement UK. In total, 167 trainee teachers participated in bereavement awareness sessions alongside their intensive initial teacher education (ITE) programme, with 113 trainee teachers providing detailed and insightful feedback on the professional learning opportunity. Participants appreciated the high-quality bereavement awareness training, facilitated by expert practitioners in the field. As one participant commented:
‘I loved the deep dive into the questioning side of bereavement – not only figuring out the best way to ask and engage with the bereaved student, but also how to answer questions relating to death and bereavement from curious students.’
