St Philip's School, Cambridge - The Happy Sad Club

Why and When

Following a series of bereavements which affected a number of children throughout the school, The Happy Sad Club was founded in 1995 by the then St Philip's headteacher Jill Pauling. Initially those affected were invited to meet for a short time each day. The meeting was mainly adult led and children were able to discuss feelings, draw, listen to stories, poems, music as well as discussing the practical issues of arranging funerals and what to expect (i.e. to prepare children as well as inviting them to become involved in arrangements such as choosing flowers or preparing readings etc. if they wished). The group grew and evolved over the years and around 50 children would volunteer to attend the weekly club. After a short introduction or story, children were invited to reflect and offer related advice or thoughts before having the opportunity to share happy or sad news. Recently, due to such large numbers of children attending, the dynamics of the group were reviewed as it was thought that it was not really meeting the original idea. It had come to be more of a news sharing time, and while valuable in itself, not fulfilling its original intention and becoming too difficult to manage as it was impossible to listen to everyone in the time given. It was also thought that some children may have been attending as a way of avoiding other lessons. To overcome this the Club was divided into the two key stages for a short period. KS1 children were able to attend during KS1 weekly hymn practise while KS2 children were invited to attend over a lunchtime period. However, when asked, KS2 children commented that they didn’t want to miss out on their lunchtime play or football days so after the initial trial of having separate keystages the groups combined again, as it was felt that pupils benefited form the wider age group. Staff identify pupils they felt would benefit from the meeting, either because they had family difficulties or social problems, and sometimes a combination of the two. Those pupils were then invited to attend. This has to be voluntary and not imposed. In the future the original idea of a ‘drop in’ is to be reinstated.

How and Who

Having established the ground rules of mutual respect, confidentiality and careful listening, there is a simple plan of the activities to be used, which always includes an introduction or simple agenda followed by either a problem or situation to reflect upon and discuss. Activities could include general sharing of news, a story, music, or and paired talk. However, it is also allowed to take its own course as need arises. An example of this was when the father of a reception class child had died the previous weekend. She was included as part of the group, and was given particular attention although this was not intrusive for the rest of the group. She was offered the teddy bear to cuddle for example, but this would be appropriate for this younger child. The member of staff involved had chosen a story which was felt to be particularly appropriate on that occasion – Badgers Parting Gifts, and it was offered to this child to take home if she wanted to – she did.
The member of staff currently leading the Club is the PSHE co-ordinator. She was also involved in promoting SEAL (social and emotional aspects of learning) throughout the school, which was adding to the purpose of the group itself. She feels that the effects of both SEAL and the Happy Sad Club had an impact on the classroom both in terms of pupils’ social skills and behaviour, as well as learning. As have previous members of staff, she has attended courses about bereavement and children to ensure she was equipped for the role, although she needs to ensure that in the meetings there is no sense of being directive, or of offering the children “right” answers. The need was rather to support and encourage. She feels she was in fact learning from the children which were able to offer real support to each other, so that she feels privileged to be able to assist them in this. Much of her work in this, and the school’s decision to deal in this way with such difficulties had come from a Christian conviction about caring for pupils emotional well-being. That it now links with a new initiative (SEAL) was helpful and encouraging, but the school had already recognised the need and met it through their own convictions. They had been used in a number of ways over the years to encourage others to take this aspect of children’s development and needs seriously.
While the group meetings had no formal objectives or lesson plan so that they could respond to need, there was one way in which pupils did support each other through a booklet which could be given to any child when there was a death in the family and was given by other pupils as an offer of support.

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