Cancer in the classroom 5: When a child in your class has cancer

When cancer directly affects a student in your class, there are a few things that you may need to consider. You may find your concerns are both on the educational side and on the social side.

So, perhaps your questions are: What are my immediate responsibilities? How should I communicate? And what can I plan for?

Work with the child's family and let them know that you can inform the Department of Education about their child's illness. This can allow you to create an IEP, which is an Individual Education Plan.

This will be based on the child's age, their physical and mental ability, and the circumstances surrounding their illness, and therefore will inform how you adjust your expectations and establish priorities according to the child’s circumstances.

The student’s attendance may be unpredictable and you need to adjust for absences as they occur. We recommend that the child and their family help to frame the message that's sent out to the child's class group and to their friends.

Depending on the maturity of the group, the message can be informative without being too detailed. So, for example, you may tell a class something like this: John will be out of school for November. Last term you may recall, he had a lot of nosebleeds. John has leukaemia, which is cancer of the blood, but he is in safe hands with expert nurses and doctors. He did ask me to pass on a message that he's going to miss homework most of all.

Perhaps you may allow the class to ask questions but be prepared, some of the questions may be about death and dying. A good idea is to have some phrases ready that you're comfortable with using. Try to be honest and explain that we do trust the doctors and nurses to do their best and it's okay to say we don't know.

Children who miss a lot of time off school due to illness feel that they drift from their friends. So, it's a good idea to maybe organise a few group activities where the students can come together, and keep engaged and keep the friendships up.

As treatment progresses, the school can work with the family and lay out a plan to help the child settle back into the school again.