Supporting You Through Life

All secondary school pupils in England should be taught about death and dying as part of the national curriculum, say the National Council for Palliative Care and the Dying Matters Coalition.

The National Council for Palliative Care is leading the campaign, which aims to make learning about death and dying part of the wellbeing curriculum in all schools. Although one person in the UK dies every minute, many schools remain unsure how to best support pupils who have been affected by the death of someone close to them.

The call for action came on the day that three 17 year-olds from London’s East End, all of whom have secured university places to study Medicine, unveiled a lesson plan at an event in Parliament to support students and teachers in talking about dying. The lesson plan followed an approach from students Michael Ha, Shedeh Javadzadeh and Buket Gundogan from Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, who asked the National Council for Palliative Care and the Dying Matters Coalition if they could work with them to produce a lesson plan to support teachers and students.

17 year old Shedeh Javadzadeh, one of the students involved in developing the lesson plan, said:

 “After taking part in a project led by the National Council for Palliative Care where we were matched up with hospice day patients, we realised this was a really important subject for people our age, and one we don’t often discuss. By designing a lesson plan I really hope that we will be helping schools to break the taboo around discussing death and dying so that more people can receive the type of care and support that they want and need.”

To read the full story, visit http://www.ncpc.org.uk/news/51

Click here for the BBC bitesize version of death studies: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/rs/death/