Loss & Grief links to SOSE

Helping friends

Types of support - pages 33-34

Giving advice - page 34

Dear Dr Wright letters (handout) - page 36

Seeking help - page 35

Newspaper article (handout) - page 37

What to say - page 35

Teacher Talk

Listening is often the best thing to do for someone who is experiencing loss and grief.

Thinking

1. Using a wide range of thinking modes

Shows the ability to operate on several planes - physical, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, social - and understands how thinking operates through these forms, often simultaneously.

Present particular points of view with examples of thinking and reasoning behind them.

Communication

1. Understanding the complexity and power of language and data and their pivotal role in communication

Is able to use language effectively to communicate ideas, information, values and emotions, in individual, group and social contexts.

Is aware of the power and function of different discourses and adapts communication to different people and contexts.

Grief in a zoo community: funerals and grief rituals

Exploring grief - page 42

Newspaper article (handout) - page 44

Funerals - page 43

Newspaper article (handout) - page 45

Research - page 43

Teacher Talk

Symbols, ceremonies and commemoration can provide a healing role for students and may be important in their gaining perspective about significant events.

1. Understanding self, group and others

Develops self-awareness and understanding with a strong sense of self-worth in social and working.

Understands key ways in which groups and cultures contribute to forming identity.

Actively engages with the interplay between the 'self' and collective identities.

Describes aspects of personal and group identity, eg cultural, behavioural, social, emotional and intellectual.

Respects different personal and collective identities.

Reflects and communicates with others to influence and generate new personal, working and group identities.

Loss: a universal experience

Change and loss - page 46

Feelings - page 47

Categories of loss (handout) - page 48

Holmes-Rahe survey of loss (worksheet) - page 49

Teacher Talk

Consider team teaching Loss and Grief with a school counsellor/guidance officer/social worker/mental health professional. They are a significant resource.

Futures

1. Understanding patterns and connections within systems

Understands personal relationships within contexts of social and work-related systems and environments.

Transfers knowledge and understandings to new contexts and situations (including vocational and recreational).

Understands the organic nature of change.

Creates new knowledge from insights of the past, understandings of the present and foresights of the future and applies this in building future scenarios.

Identity

2. Understanding the social construction of identities

Learners developing an understanding of themselves, of the groups to which they belong, and of other members of their community.

Learners coming to an understanding of the social construction of identities.

Learners developing the capacity to relate effectively to others and to resist the pressure of negative stereotyping.

Learners achieving a sense of their own current and emerging identities.