9 yr old at school has died

[roisin]

DSs go to a lovely school - it's quite large (c.500 kids), but very much one big family.

One of the children - a girl in yr5 - died suddenly last week from an asthma attack at home. She has two other young siblings in the school.

Dh (a Baptist Minister and school Governor) has been asked to go into school on the first day back to generally help out if necessary.

Have your children experienced this at all? Are there any particular worries they had? Did the school handle it well or badly? Any tips/comments/suggestions?

(We have actually been through this before as a 9 yo died suddenly in the previous small community we lived in.)

[Yorkiegirl]

oh no roisin
I have no experience of this but I must admit it is something I hope I never have to go through as a teacher.

[Spacecadet]

so sorry to read this.
what year are your children in?
not quite the same, but my dd and ds go to a school where 3 years ago the caretaker murdered 2 little girls there, there was a lot of coverage and it was very upsetting for the children at the secondary school as the girls were well known and their siblings attended the school.
the school arranged for counsellors to be on site for all the pupils and i feel they handled it very sensitively.
they also released 2 doves on the school field in a remewmberance service
it can be a big shock for children when one of their peers dies as children are not normally contemplating the subject of death, i think you have to be honest, explain why the little girl died, but say its very rare.

[Spacecadet]

rememberance*

[robinpud]

Sadly we have just lost one of our year 6 children a month ago to leukaemia. It has been awful, particualarly for the staff all of whom have taught him. He has a brother in the infants.
Although the leukaemia had been an issue for 2 years, the ending was quite sudden. this is what the school did
told all the children at a special assembly Mon am and gave them lots of class time to talk together.
Collected memories, written, pictorial, oral etc
Arranged for the minister to come in and talk to the children about death and what the funeral might entail.
Before the actual funeral they held a special service at school for the children and staff only which was very emotional. this was very helpful in allowing the children to deal with their emotions before the actual funeral. The memories were collected into a wonderful book which will be given, later on to Reece's family.
Older children who wanted to attend the funeral did, with a parent and they sang a hymn. One of the teachers gave a beautiful eulogy. One of the other teachers felt he couldn't do it and was honest enough to let the family know.
We closed the school at lunchtime on the day of the funeral, ( this was all the LEA would allow but we discouraged morning attendance so that teachers had time to grieve.
we are planning a memorial in the school grounds .
It is the most horrendous thing for all involved, particularly the close friends. The LEA should provide a counselling service if the school community need it.
My thoughts are with the family and community.

[Dizzymama]

roisin, i have been through this as ateacher when a girl with special needs died in her sleep (year 4). it was dreadful and to be honest we all went on automatic pilot. she was an extremely lovely child who i had a lot to do with so i felt an incredibly personal grief but at the same time had to think of the others. we told the children in classes and openly encouraged crying / discussing l's life and how she had touched us all. the choir were asked to sing at the funeral so they threw themselves into learning her favourite songs (i cannot listen to the theme tune to titanic now ) others made memory books, wrote poems etc. i think we handled it well and the children seemed to cope although we still get tears. they were worried about it happening to them or a family member - i would say that was their main concern. please feel free to cat me or i can post my email, if you think i could help any further. i may not sound exceptionally coherant in this post as have ill dd sleeping on left hand - very tricky to type, think and balance laptop!

[roisin]

My boys are in yr2 and 4, and neither of them know the girl or her siblings very well, so it's not a personal loss to them. But, as you say, the sudden death of a peer comes as a huge shock to primary children. We haven't told them yet - it happened whilst we were away so we missed the funeral - but we will tell them tomorrow.

[hulababy]

As a teacher I have now experienced this 4 times - two Y11 boys (two illnesses), a Y9 boy (road accident) and a Y11 girl (very sadly suicide). A teacher also died suddenly one evening. The girl was in my second school. The others from my first school

I had the Y9 class just after they had been told that morning. It was tough going. he was a very popular boy and it wasn't expected - he died in a road accident when he was out cycling. I gave the class work to do but also let them talk and basically grieve. i think they needed some time as a class to try to make sense of it.

The school didn't really do much extra. They had a longer than normal registration and the class teachers broke the news, for those that didn't already know. the class teachers were also given some slack tomes that day so their pupils could go and see then if they needed. Rest of time it was classes as normal. but really easy going on the pupils affected. Puils and teachers were given time off to attend the funerals if they wished. And for one of these children there was a special award made - he was a big sportsman and it was a sports award given out annually. There is also a clock or a bench (or similar) n the playground dedicated to those children, and something else for the teacher I think.

[waterfalls]

Agirl at my high school died suddenly on a school hocky tornamant, she fell down the stairs, broke her ribs that punctured both her lungs, I remember the head mistress telling us all in assembly, it was awful she was in bits.

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

It's very sad, that poor family .

Maybe a coincidence but are you in Cumbria roisin?

[cece]

When I moved to my current school I got the class in Yr 6 who had a girl die while they were all in Yr3. There was a framed picutre that she had drawn that had followed them up the school. They all commented how pleased they were that it had been hung in their new room for the first day of term. It is now in the corridor as they have gone onto secondary school.

The school also had a special folder named after her where all excellent work is recorded weekly and names/work read out in assembly.

[DumbledoresGirl]

When I was in primary school (about 10/11) the younger brother of one of my classmates, who was also a friend of mine, was killed playing dare on a very busy road (now upgraded to a motorway - so that was how busy). I remember we were obviously all told about it but I don't remember anything special being done to help us through the shock. Obviously it is very shocking to hear of an unexpected death at any age, but I think children have a sort of resilience (or is it a detatchment?) about these things.

I can remember the next time I saw my friend's mother - she looked a changed woman and I was just fascinated by the sight of her and probably stared at her for far longer than I should have done, but I don't remember feeling any grief for the death of the younger brother, even though he was someone I knew.

[roisin]

Thanks all - very helpful.

Saggarmakersbottomknocker - yes, we're in Cumbria. Where are you?

[Blandmum]

We had the most awful case when dd was in nursery. One of the children in the class was killed by her father

Because of the circumstances, and the age (she was only 3/4) the school didn't have anything for the children. there was a rememeberace service foe the staff, who were utterlt traumatised by the whole thing. It still makes me feel ill. Dd was too young to take anything on board

[katyp]

In my experience, only the children who knew the girl well will be affected (and even then not as much as you the parents would be). As DDsgirl said, young children seem to have a detachment about death - they may be interested in the "gory details" as it were, but not seem overly sad about it. There may be questions about death and what happens afterwards though.

I remember a girl in my school dying in an accident when we were about 6. She wasn't in my class (year below) but lived near me so we sometimes played together. I remember that we weren't told exactly what had happened so there was a lot of rumours floating around amongst the children (which probably were worse than the reality.) I think it's best to explain as much as possible what happened to allay fears (that it might happen to them or their family for example).

I think however that it will be the child's parents and staff and parents who know them who will be most badly affected by the death.

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

North Staffs ......think this is the classmate of a friend's dd

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

Friend lives in Cumbria - sorry, didn't make that clear roisin.

[Sherbert37]

May be worries about athma being the cause from other children with asthma. My DS1 has mild asthma but went through a phase of being very scared he would die during an attack because of things he had seen on tv.

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

Sherbert - that's a really good point. My dd has heart problems and wasn't recently scared silly by Honey's heart problem in Eastenders. Even the children with very mild asthma may fear that this is something that will happen to them.

[Saggarmakersbottomknocker]

Sorry - that's was recently. Need more sleep.