What my ‘hidden’ trauma taught me about belonging in schools

Those of us who work in schools cannot always know what is happening in a child’s life. Even with the best safeguarding and home-link structures in place, we cannot identify every child who may need us more than others.

However, what we are in control of is building schools that are safe by design - where every child, regardless of what we know about them, has the chance to thrive and to know that they belong.

I know from personal experience how much that can matter. I often speak about authenticity in leadership, so I’ve chosen to share my own experiences openly, in the hope that others will feel encouraged to reflect on how theirs have shaped their work.

I hope that by sharing these experiences, I can shine a light on the challenges that some of our children might be facing, why those challenges might not be obvious, and what difference a school that is safe by design can make to those young people.

During the early years of my childhood, I grew up in a nice house, with both my parents and an older brother. My Dad ran a family business. We had regular holidays, and I always seemed to do well when it came to Christmas and birthday presents.

I was a confident child. I was a member of a performing arts club. I loved to talk and entertain others.

I loved my primary school. I felt I belonged. That school was my school, and I had phenomenal relationships with my teachers, who I felt valued me, cared about me and championed me.

When I was 9 years old, my world changed.

Suffering trauma alone

Shortly after Christmas, my Dad developed a nasty flu. He very quickly became very unwell and was taken to hospital one evening by ambulance. We were at the hospital 36 hours later when he passed away from pneumonia and sepsis.

My dad died at 10.30am. At 6.15pm that same day, I walked to my music and drama group for our scheduled rehearsal. I was back in school the following day.

While I didn’t realise it at the time, it’s obvious to me now that I wanted to be in the places where I felt most secure, most confident and where I knew I would be supported.

That’s the power of community - it doesn’t erase pain but it gives us somewhere to carry it.

This is why belonging in schools isn’t a luxury. It’s a lifeline.

I didn’t cry the day my Dad died. I didn’t cry at his funeral either. People told me how amazingly strong I was. Wider family told me what a great job I was doing of supporting my Mum.

The truth is, I was very aware of how devastated my family were, and I felt a sense of responsibility not to add to that. I tried hard not to be upset in front of others because I didn’t want to make them feel sadder than they already were.

I held it together for six months before I broke down in Kwik Save car park in Leyland. I was sobbing for well over an hour. I just couldn’t hold it in any more.

I still remember the feeling of shame I felt that day for the upset I caused my Mum. For the fuss I made.

But that day broke me open - it began the slow process of healing. Sometimes the moment we fall apart is the moment we start to rebuild.

Moving schools to go to secondary hit me hard. I felt a total loss of control. I went from a school where I was known, and where I felt confident and secure, to a new environment.

Hoping for support

I was lost. There was no support for that transition. It didn’t feel as if there had been any sharing of information. I had to retell the death of my Dad over and over again.

I can’t remember a single time when anybody proactively sat down and gave me the space to talk about my Dad. There was no offer of support.

I desperately wanted space to talk, but I did not know how to ask for it. I started taking a day off almost every week from very early on in Year 7. But it did not result in the response I expected.

Because it was usually the day we had PE, staff assumed they knew what was going on for me: skipping a subject I did not like. So they just told me to make sure I was in. That was it.

Eager to please, I did as they asked and they celebrated that as a success.

I went on to do really well in secondary school - taking every opportunity and having a wonderful group of friends. Even if that school did wonder about the impact of my Dad’s death on me, I seemed to be doing fine.

Nobody saw what was really happening. Nobody saw me struggling. And nobody in that school or my primary school knew that there was a lot more going on for me than the death of my Dad.

During those “happy” years in primary, I was growing up surrounded by alcohol dependency. My Dad had been an alcoholic ever since I could remember. When I think of him, I can’t remember his voice but I can still smell the whisky.

Nobody knew

I would go to school my usual cheerful self in my clean, ironed uniform. I would engage diligently with my lessons. I played as normal. Nobody knew.

Nobody knew that I was given an important job of hiding the whisky. I was to make sure it was always hidden in a place that Dad didn’t know, and only to bring it out if Mum said it was OK. I wasn’t allowed to tell Mum where it was hidden, so she didn’t have to try to keep the secret from Dad. That was my job.

Nobody knew about the night when it was just me and Dad at home, and he found the whisky. I remember him choking over the sink when he drank it. I remember him having a fit on the kitchen floor. I remember the feeling of shame: I’d failed, I’d let him down, I’d let Mum down. It was my fault.

And nobody knew that the day before my Dad went into hospital, while he was hallucinating, he locked me in our downstairs toilet for two hours. He told me that the IRA were going to storm our house and kill us all. My mum said if we told anyone he would be taken away from us.

This is what invisible trauma looks like. A child who smiles, performs and achieves while carrying a weight no one can see.

There were other parts of my childhood that I never spoke about.

I was sexually abused by two people whom I trusted before I was 10. I did not know it was abuse at the time, but I knew that it was wrong. I also knew that it was something I could never tell anybody. I felt ashamed, like it was my fault. I boxed it away and tried to ignore it. But my perception of the world and myself had changed. Again, nobody knew.

Nobody knew either that my brother became alcohol dependent. I went with him to therapy. I worked with him on job applications, foolishly thinking I could fix it for him.

Nobody knew I was looking after my Mum, too. She told me that I owed her because she gave up everything for me when Dad died, and I believed her.

All this was normal to me. I never told anyone. No one ever guessed.

‘I just never got the chance to talk about any of this’

At the same time, I was in the middle of struggling to come to terms with my own sexuality. I grew up in the Section 28 era when nobody in school spoke about people being gay. I grew up in a community where the idea of somebody being gay was unheard of, where it was the butt of a joke.

I felt ashamed of my sexuality - I was convinced it was something that needed to be kept a secret.

I was also ashamed of my desire to study at university. In my family, higher education wasn’t something people had experienced themselves, and it didn’t always feel like a natural path for someone like me. My academic achievements at school and college weren’t always understood or celebrated in the way I might have hoped. I think that was less about a lack of care and more about uncertainty about what those successes might mean for my future.

When college started talking to me about the University of Cambridge, the idea got into my head. One night I spoke to my Mum about it. At first, she laughed, but then when she realised I was serious, she told me I couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t clever enough. Later, when she realised that I was still thinking about it, she told me about someone she went to school with who went to Cambridge and took his own life.

She told me that’s what happened when people like us went to places like Cambridge.

In a strange twist of fate, I met the man that my Mum went to school with who’d apparently taken his own life 10 years later. He was alive and well. I’d already worked out long before that my Mum’s words of advice were nothing to do with me. They stemmed from her own fears of being left behind. Of losing her rock.

I just never got the chance to talk about any of this. Nobody asked. So nobody knew.

I often wonder how things might have been different for me had my life gone down a different track. It’s difficult not to wonder about the what-ifs. I’m clear that many of the things that happened to me should have been very different. But I don’t regret any of them. These experiences have shaped who I’ve become.

I’m not ashamed any more, because I know that every success, every strength and every positive aspect of my life has been shaped through these experiences.

I’m not angry at anybody for the things I’ve experienced, either. I recognise that my Mum and Dad’s parenting was shaped by their own experiences as children. I recognise that my Mum, Dad and brother were all facing their demons. I know they all loved me, but they just didn’t have the capacity to do any better for me.

I’m also not angry that no one at school knew so many things about me, and that, as a result, I missed out on the support I needed. I understand that my experience of school was probably symptomatic of its time.

But what I am is determined. I’m determined that our school system needs to be better for children.

I know that my story isn’t unique or special. I know that there are many children and adults in our schools who have suffered, or continue to suffer, trauma far worse than mine, and whose experiences are more complex.

I also know there will be children who are struggling but whose struggles never present as poor behaviour or weak academic progress. Children whose struggles we don’t really know or understand.

I’m determined that our schools will be sanctuaries for these children, places where they feel that they belong, where they feel known and understood.

I believe that the key is to approach every child with a sense of curiosity, and to base our approach to education around creating the environment that children who’ve suffered trauma need to thrive.

We must assume that any one of our children could be facing a whole host of barriers that we don’t know about, and create the right environment for them, just in case.

How do we do that? By asking ourselves questions like these.

• Which elements of our approach and routines help our children to feel known and understood? Which might make them feel judged or unseen?
• How often do we miss the chance to look beyond a child’s attendance or behaviour and ask why? What opportunities are we missing?
• What small action could we take when we’re next in school to strengthen a child’s sense of connection?
• How can each of us help to create a culture for our colleagues where everybody feels confident to be vulnerable and their authentic selves?
• If every child deserves a champion, how will we show a child that they have one in us?

It takes courage to connect with empathy. It takes strength to see beyond the obvious and into the heart of a child. It takes a brave team of committed people to change a system that continues to fail too many of the most vulnerable in our communities.

But we have to be that kind of team. Our children deserve it.

David Clayton is CEO at Endeavour Learning Trust

People who are affected by the issues mentioned in this article can find support through mental health charity Mind’s list of useful contacts.

For children affected, Childline can offer support and advice.