‘We have 40 pupils bereaved’: Schools facing tsunami of childhood grief in wake of coronavirus

Just before lockdown was ordered at the end of March, Tom Urwin, headteacher at Outwood Academy Ormesby in Middlesbrough, set up a school bereavement register.

The idea was to have a document which kept track of any pupils who lost loved ones to Covid-19.

“My hope was we’d never have to use it,” he tells The Independent. “In a worst-case scenario, I thought there might be a dozen names on it.”

Today, more than 40 students are included in the list. Each and every one of these youngsters at this single northeast high school has lost an immediate family member to coronavirus. Among the deaths are parents, grandparents, primary carers, aunts and uncles.

“Two or three weeks into lockdown, we were having to add new names every day,” Urwin says. “To get to 40, it’s devastating. It’s been a tragedy for the community.”

As the national debate continues surrounding how to safely reopen schools in September, there are increasing concerns that amid the desire to get back to some educational normality, the issue of pupil grief may be being overlooked.

Exact figures remain elusive but tens of thousands of children are estimated to have lost loved ones to coronavirus over the last four months. While few schools have been as badly hit as Outwood, few too have been left entirely unscathed. Winston’s Wish, a charity which supports bereaved youngsters, says it has seen visits to its website more than quadruple since the end of March.

The fear now, experts say, is that if this tsunami of childhood mourning is not dealt with properly, it could create a time bomb of long-term trauma, emotional scarring and mental health issues. Pertinently, because Covid-19 is hitting poorer communities – such as Ormesby – the hardest, it is vulnerable and disadvantaged children who are most likely to suffer as a result.

“It’s vital, as a country, that we get this right,” says Urwin from his office at the 930-pupil school. “If it’s not dealt with properly then the impact cannot be underestimated. If the right support isn’t there, we run the risk of these young people never reaching their full potential.”

Funding and support must be provided to those that need it, he says – a plea supported by the NASUWT teachers’ union.

“The government needs a plan for the return of children to schools which recognises they will need emotional and mental health support as well as access to the formal curriculum,” Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary, told The Independent in a statement.

“The union has called for the provision of personal, social and health education and mental health support to enable the transition back into formal learning for children who have been affected during this crisis. We have still not had a definitive answer to that.”

The devastation at Outwood Academy Ormesby itself, it is worth saying, mirrors Middlesbrough’s wider struggles with coronavirus.

Infection numbers here have soared. By the start of June, it had the seventh highest death rate in the entire country – and the worst outside London. It was so bad at one point that when the government ordered the country’s parks to be reopened, the town’s elected mayor Andy Preston refused, saying that the virus was still spreading too fast.

People are especially vulnerable because of both high levels of deprivation – it is the poorest borough in the country according to official statistics – and large numbers of pre-existing health conditions, such as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Ormesby itself, it’s worth adding, is one of the poorest of Middlesbrough’s areas.

“It’s a community where everyone knows everyone else,” says Urwin, whose school is one of 32 across the country in the Outwood Grange Academies Trust. “So, to lose this number of people, it affects the whole area.”

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The fact that many of these fatalities are grandparents in no way detracts from the tragedy, the 34-year-old believes.

“In areas like this, grandparents have a huge role in helping bring up children,” he says. “Some are primary carers. But, even where they’re not, they are hugely involved with our pupils’ lives. The loss is huge.”

The academy itself is taking a three-pronged approach to helping those affected.

All staff will undergo specialist bereavement training; a specific area of the school will be turned into a support zone; and an external counselling service will be on constant call for students to access.

“The main thing, which we will work into every day, is being there to support our pupils,” says Urwin.

“People see staff just as teachers. You’re not just a teacher. You’re a social worker, a councillor, a friend, a confidante. And it’s about bringing out those qualities even more to create a school that is as warm and happy and supportive a place as we can.”

It is the kind of action that experts at Winston’s Wish – which was the UK’s first childhood bereavement charity when founded in 1992 – say all schools should consider in our new coronavirus era.

While experts there are loath, at this stage, to estimate the precise numbers of children and teenagers they believe may have lost close relatives over the last four months, the facts, to some extent, speak for themselves.

Some 41,000 children lose parents every year on average, with a parent dying every 22 minutes. “Clearly,” says Suzannah Phillips, associate director with the body, “when there have been 50,000 deaths in a pandemic, that figure is not going to have gone down.”

The charity itself has provided online bereavement training to some 13,500 school staff since May, while also making learning resources freely available.

They have done so, they say, because the long-term consequences of failing to get a grip on such a potential time bomb of grief have to be taken seriously, even amid the seemingly more urgent issue of ensuring children don’t catch and spread Covid-19 when they return to classrooms.

“In some circumstances,” she tells The Independent, “if [bereaved youngsters] don’t get help from school or the wider community, that will make it harder for them to manage and process these complex emotions which, without help – because we know grief doesn’t go away – could lead to anxiety and disengagement in teenage years and beyond ... The support being there is so important to help [prevent] that.”

The charity says schools should prioritise three main aspects of support: staying in touch with pupils and families as they work through their grief, providing routine with flexibility, and simply ensuring staff are trained to acknowledge what has happened and be there for pupils. Crucially, such measures should continue to be in place on a long-term basis – “grief does reappear”.

Back in Middlesbrough, it is something Urwin says he is aware of and will ensure Outwood’s own pupil support remains in place for the long haul.

As our conversation starts to come to an end, he ponders that bereavement register once more. “This isn’t something you ever expect to set up as a teacher,” he says. “Schools are about the future, about life.”

All the same, he is determined his centre will meet the challenge. “Losing a parent – even a grandparent in the context – is the biggest thing a child can go through,” he says. “We’ll make sure we’re always there for those who need it.”

The Department for Education was approached for comment.