AIBU to ask if your primary school have banned water bottles in class

As a teacher I rarely got to the staffroom on breaks and sometimes lunchtimes. Occasionally a TA might bring me one down, or I'd have a flask type cup . Most teachers rarely get to drink a full, hot cuppa!

@crikeycrumbsblimey

I’m really sorry you think I’m not a teacher, or that my version of events is somehow unreliable. I’ve actually been teaching in secondaries since 2005. I’ve learnt the hard way how to run a classroom; it’s an absolute minefield and some children are naturally counter-cultural and will seek behavioural loopholes.

I can tell you from vast experience that it’s unnecessary and disruptive to allow water-chugging throughout lessons, although it tends to calm down after the children settle into their new setting and realise they’re not going to expire if they put their bottle away for 45 minutes or so.

Yanbu. Child in year 1...water bottle s are kept on a tray by the sink

Water bottles in class encouraged here, especially now with Covid.

Air con isn’t allowed to be used at the moment, only open windows and doors and it’s fucking hot! Water fountains are also off limits.

There’s always a reminder in the newsletter to make sure your child brings at least 1 bottle of water.

@easyluckyfree

Just have to deal with bottle lid flipping then 🤣🤦‍♀️

No they aren’t banned, but I have a rule where if they’re the metal ones they need to stay in their bags to avoid the deafening noise of them crashing over onto the desks at various points when I’m teaching.

Nope , I do prefer they have a drink on the way in from break and lunch though.

Toilet trips are a no no during lesson time.

Btw children aged 4-8 need around 5 cups a day, so I think 3 during school hours is plenty.

Children don't need to sip continuously, especially at this time of year.

They should be having a proper drink with breakfast before school, encouraged to have another at each of morning break, lunch, and afternoon break.

In the summer term if it's hot I'd think its reasonable to have water bottles to hand but not the rest of the time.

OP, we’re not ‘horrible teachers’ for getting annoyed about constant interruptions to learning because of toilet trips and constant water chugging.

If you have a class of 30 children for an hour per week (as is the case in my subject) and seven children want the toilet at seven different points during the lesson, that constitutes seven pointless lesson disruptions and reduction of learning time.

I’m trying to maximise focus and attainment, and I’m being asked for the loo every 5 minutes.

No we still get regular emails asking that all children are sent in with a full water bottle every day as not allowed to use water fountain due to covid. They are kept in a tray and the class has regular water break for little ones. Older children can drink whenever but expected not to interrupt class/ be rude about it.

I don't understand the current trend for drinking water constantly.

I went to school in Kenya and even in those temperature we never had drinks constantly at hand, only at break times.

Schools provide fruit for snack time because the alternative that many children would bring is far less healthy, and water bottles remove the need for water fountains and allow the children to have a quick drink when the need it rather than queuing up or constantly leaving the classroom.

We also used to allow children to sit in the smoking carriage of trains, to go in the back of cars that didn’t have seatbelts, and made them do sport in their underwear, should we go back to these too?

No child needs to eat that much food of a morning. It seemed to me to be setting them up with a continuous grazing habit.

Exactly.

I do think kids should be encouraged to drink more water through the day and have it available - but you also have to teach that there are appropriate times to do that and none appropriate times too.

The whole instant gratification culture has taken things to another extreme where you don't learn self regulation or managing when you eat/drink and actually that has value too.

It has struck me that constantly feeding kids has been used by some to regulate behaviour, but in an inappropriate way. Its more of a crutch or comforter and actually we need to either eat better to avoid sugar highs and lows or learn to manage those better.

Eating and drinking at appropriate times, in appropriate levels just seems to be completely over looked.

If you are working in so many jobs, you can't just eat or drink on demand. Its not preparing for the real world. And thats what school really should be about - life skills of all kinds and preparing for the real world.

Once you set up and normalise habits such as regular snacking, its incredibly difficult to break.

I just dont get this.

Water bottles in tray for kids to access through the day at an appropriate time is absolutely where it should be. It should not be water bottles at the table permanently.

And i do wish they would just ditch snacking as a normalised thing. Its just not and I think it creates much bigger long term problems for a term short immediate fix.

No child needs to eat that much food of a morning. It seemed to me to be setting them up with a continuous grazing habit.

Think they're in trays in the middle of a table group in one of my children's classes and in a basket on the side in the other's at the moment but both take water bottles in. I have a straw chewer though so do send in the metal ones to stop that habit (cos she would shred through them).

They’re only allowed at break and lunch at my DC’s school as well. Unsure if it’s the same on younger years but they recently banned them from the tables in my DC’s years (5 and 6) because they were too distracting. The teachers have also made it clear how much they dislike metal water bottles because they fall over in the tray and have hurt people’s feet falling. I refuse to buy plastic bottles anymore after they went through 4 plastic ones in 2 months so they’ll have to deal with the metal ones.

Ours insist on water bottles and they're kept in a trolley in class for easy access.

They're kept in a crate outside the actual classroom at ds' primary school. Not sure what the issue is here.

I thought good hydration was proven to be better for learning.

"Never heard of a UK primary school that has lockers - is this usual?"

We have lockers in each classroom, some schools have trays. So they won't have to go far for a drink I don't think, no further than going to the sink I wouldn't have thought.

Perhaps the school did this before covid and are reverting to that rule op?

""In my day too, but suffered with loads of UTIs which in hindsight might have been something to with only having a tiny cup of water during the day."

Also surely you had more than a tiny cup of water during the day?

A drink before school, milk or water at breaktime, as much water as you needed at lunchtime, a drink when you came out of school?