The little boy had forgotten to bring in his homework. Exasperated, the teacher asked him why. “Well,” he said, “the baby died last night.”

Coping with an unexpected death is one of the most challenging situations that we face and for teachers in school it raises all sorts of issues of communication, support and responsibility.

It was a death in her own family which led Lynne Edwards, of the Scottish Council for Research in Education, to start exploring the ways in which schools could support pupils who were suffering as a result of a bereavement.

With funding from the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, the project SCRE began in January 2000 is now nearing completion. Nine schools have piloted the SCRE pack, Supporting Bereaved Young People, and a further 63 schools are being issued with packs and given the opportunity to take part in workshops.

“We’re not making teachers into counsellors,” says Ann Dockrell, co-author of the pack. “This is a holding operation, a kind of first-aid kit. Bereavement is natural: we don’t want to make it pathological. But some people may need special help and the pack tells them how to get it.”

The original nine schools were issued with packs tailor-made to their area, giving information on local support agencies such as bereavement counsellors, and taking account of the cultural diversity of the local population with information on Hindu, Muslim and Sikh cultures.

The second stage of the project has been to distribute a “generic” pack which is applicable to any area and includes leaflets, booklets and two books by other organisations, as well as a SCRE booklet of photocopiable materials to help teachers add to and update the information as necessary. The strategy for producing a pack is now also available on the web, so any school with the time and commitment to do so can produce their own pack.

The SCRE project is aimed at 12 to 18-year-olds, the age group which was thought to be most in danger of falling through the net.

“A primary school teacher will see any change in behaviour,” says Mrs Dockrell, “but at secondary school when pupils are moving from class to class, it might not be picked up so easily. Also, bereavement at primary school age can carry through to secondary school. It sometimes takes five years to surface and then it is very difficult to say why a child is being aggressive, violent or withdrawn.”

Young people who don’t get the help they need may react to a death in unexpected ways, adds Mrs Dockrell. “These 12 to 18-year-olds, these are the hard guys who might take drugs or drink to try to avoid their feelings, to distract them from the pain. We’re hoping that the pack might make those sorts of responses less necessary.”

The pack is aimed at teachers, not pupils, but it does include a leaflet, People Need Help When Someone Dies, which is intended to be read by young people themselves. It is a sensitive yet straightforward publication designed to untangle some of the worries and fears that surround death.

Simply by telling children that the emotional and physical responses they may be experiencing are normal will be a help to many. Reactions to grief can vary from lack of concentration to tiredness or difficulty in breathing. Just knowing why these things are happening can be a huge relief to a confused young person.

Death is a normal and natural part of our lives. “If a child is part of a family that is supportive and well-rooted, and if the child gets the opportunity to express grief and knows his feelings are important and natural, then the chances are that child won’t need intervention,” says Mrs Dockrell. If things go wrong, however, then a supportive teacher can make all the difference.

SCRE has worked mainly with guidance staff in the pilot schools, but Ms Edwards and Mrs Dockrell point out that a pupil may seek help elsewhere, from a particular class teacher or from office or catering staff.

They hope that the information in the pack will be disseminated throughout the school, not hidden away on a shelf in the guidance teacher’s office. They also hope schools will adapt the pack and make it their own, as happened at Govan High in Glasgow, one of the pilot schools, where an art teacher asked S2 and S3 pupils to produce work to illustrate the leaflet. The results are now published throughout the pack.

For teachers, the whole area of pupil bereavement can seem difficult to address. “It was surprising the number of guidance teachers who felt uncomfortable dealing with bereavement,” says Mrs Dockrell. “Some saw themselves as behind-the-scenes firefighters, and were afraid to show weakness to colleagues.”

Others, she suggests, might find it difficult to move from a role where they are responsible for discipline to that of pastoral support.

“It’s important to realise what a difficult job they have,” says Ms Edwards. “Very few have had any bereavement training at all. One of the main questions we were asked was where can they get training and who will pay for it?”

Perhaps the scariest thing for a teacher dealing with bereavement in school is that there are no hard and fast rules. “A bereavement is as individual as an individual,” says Ms Edwards. “Some teachers have been looking for answers that the pack and the workshop just can’t give them. There is no magic formula.”

Mrs Dockrell emphasises the importance of allowing the child to remain in control of the situation. “The respect for the young person’s authority is one of the most important issues. The teacher has to take guidance from the child on what they need and that is a very different role for most teachers.”

For the SCRE booklet Supporting Bereaved Young People see www.scre.ac.ukbereavement