Best Practice

Supporting bereaved students

Pupil wellbeing
It thought that 22,000 children suffer the loss of a parent every year in the UK ― one every 22 minutes. Mother-of-two Linda Aitchison, whose husband died in May, reports on how secondary schools can best meet the needs of these pupils and families

Your daughter is letting herself down by not concentrating in class,” a teacher told me at parents’ evening and I was lost for words.

Coming weeks on from losing my husband – her dad – this was the last thing I expected to hear. I mumbled something about how I disagreed and we continued to the next teacher. 

Thankfully this brief exchange, from a teacher who has now moved on, has been the exception rather than the rule. School support for us as a bereaved family has been exemplary. Before that, as we struggled to cope with six months of incurable cancer, the school played a key role in being there for my girls. 

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