Best Practice

Case study: Talking about death

Talking about death is something we are not very good at and often do not tackle in schools. Yet a vast majority of pupils will experience a significant bereavement before the age of 16. Emma Lee-Potter reports on a pilot project linking one school’s pupils with their local hospice

Death and bereavement are part of many children’s lives. More than two-thirds of schools have a bereaved pupil on their roll at any given time, while 92 per cent per cent of young people experience a significant bereavement before they reach the age of 16.

Death is a difficult subject to talk about, particularly with young children, but a pilot project launched by a Leicester hospice is helping to address the issue in a sensitive and thoughtful way.

Loros hospice, which supports and cares for more than 2,500 people in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland every year, recently invited a group of primary school children to work on an art project with terminally ill patients.

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