REFLEXIONES FINALES.

Teachers discussed various ways that they heard the news of a student death. These experiences appeared to depend on the time of day or week that a student death occurred, for example whether it was in the morning, at a weekend or during a school holiday. Teachers’ experiences also depended on how well SLT were able to deal with student death and as such, led to discussions about how well a student death was handled by the school as a whole. Some teachers felt their school

handled the death of a child extremely well, whereas others felt there was room for improvement in order to make the experience better for all involved.

Upon the school being informed of the news of a student death, the majority of teachers identified that the child’s class teacher and teaching assistants were the first to be told by the headteacher or SLT, before the news was shared with the wider staff team.

The people in the classroom that the child was in erm are taken to one side and told first erm and then other members of staff (P16).

These experiences depended on the time of day school received the news as gathering a whole staff group together to inform everybody at the same time was problematic, especially if children had already arrived at school that day. In those situations, some teachers described SLT visiting classes throughout the day to inform staff, or a whole staff email being sent to ensure everyone had the facts and to prevent gossip. The following teacher found that hearing the news of a student death via email was harder to handle.

Some it’s more just sort of they have to send an email I think and then it can be harder (P13).

I mean our headteacher always sends round an email to everybody just to inform them and to let them know that actually they need not gossip about it cos it’s really difficult for the class that the child has been with you know been in and for the family you know and to make sure that they’re not stood in the middle of the staffroom having a chat (P15).

If a student death occurred at the weekend, then some teachers described being sent an email, particularly if the death was sudden and staff were expecting to see the child on Monday. Others described having such a close relationship with parents and families that sometimes teachers and support staff were told directly by parents and therefore knew a child had died before arriving for work.

In fact, the first people who found out were the staff because the mum rang round or text [...] and they knew as they were coming into work (P6).

Sometimes it might be the parent who contacts me before the school does because I’ve got very close relationships (P13).

Some teachers described alternative systems where special items were hung around school on the day a child had died. This meant that staff coming into school were aware as soon as they arrived that a death had occurred. Staff would then be told about the individual child following similar processes described above.

School tend to put up [items] around the school building so you know if you see them you know somebody’s gone […] and you think oh who is it [...] then they tend to call the teachers into the staff room and tell you who it is (P10).

A particular challenge of dealing with the news of a student death whilst at school was whether staff were given adequate time to deal with the news. This was found to be notably problematic as often staff were told about the death of a child first thing in the morning just before the other children arrived to begin their school day. Some teachers described support staff being brought in from other classes to enable the child’s staff to have some time together to process the news.

The class that the child has died from erm they get staff from another room just to go in and support that staff they pull them all out to the staff room and they tell them (P14).

In other situations, headteachers would ensure the staff most affected by the student death were given time out to be together before returning to class.

He wouldn’t, the headteacher wouldn’t just tell them and like go back he’d leave them for sort of a good 15 minutes or what have you (P11).

However, for other staff who were not working directly with the child, often the expectation within schools was that they had to carry on with their day as there were other children who needed to have their educational, medical and social needs met. This was found to be difficult for a number of teachers interviewed.

I do think they kind of have the expectation that you will just carry on through the day (P10).

Usually [the other students] are already in school so it’s really hard I think it’ll be so hard because you’ll then have to do a day with the rest of the class […] my colleague really struggled after Mary had died and she just walked round the school she just

looked awful bless her she was really like holding on all the way through the day (P12).

In contrast, the following teacher found comfort in returning to their class to spend the day with the other children following the death of a child.

I just want to get back in with the children […] from experience most of us you almost have that maternal pull like I want to get back to those children that are still there (P14).

Throughout all of the interviews, teachers discussed children who had died and their experiences following each death. There were some differences in how the news was broken to staff and this seemed to influence how well the death was perceived to have been handled by the school as a whole. Where the news was shared quickly, and staff given time to be together, the handling of the death of a child was perceived more positively.

It’s something we all knew would happen from time to time er none of us would ever wish for that to happen erm, but I think because of that the way that it was broken to everyone the way that it was handled was done very well I think yeah (P17).

One teacher described a death which had not been acknowledged by the school as an exceptionally negative experience. This was attributed to the fact that the headteacher struggled personally to deal with death and therefore did not have the ability to support their staff team adequately.

The headteacher at the time couldn’t deal with death nothing was said in school about the fact that Matthew just disappeared, and nothing was ever mentioned about the fact that he died […] nothing was ever said about the fact that he just disappeared, and I thought that was awful (P7).