Mayflower primary school - nappy changing facilities for school aged children

It is about SEND kids though.

When I started teaching 15 years ago you may have had the odd reception child starting in nappies (very rare!) generally dry after a month or two.

Now there are children in nappies in every year group from nursery to upper Juniors- so that is why schools now need changing facilities.

There are more typical children starting nursery in nappies, but that is likely because children start at 2 now so it's more 'normal' and accepted.

I think that if Terry towelling nappies were the only option then most (but not all) children would be completely potty trained by aged 2.5. Nappies are cheap and convenient, not to mention absolutely awful for the environment.

Yes, it is and I know that sounds mad! It is a small class of around 15.

What would it help? Would your answer change if you knew why the OP was asking?

Absolutely agree. We tried to potty train our girl at 2.5 and she absolutely wasn't having it. She couldn't tell us she needed a wee, nor did she notice, or care, if she wet herself.

She went into Preschool at 3 and immediately said she wanted to be a big girl and go to the toilet like the other kids. She was 3y 2m when she started Preschool and 3y 3m when she was fully potty trained.

If she hadn't been going to Preschool I'm certain she'd have been closer to 4 before we even attempted it as she just wasn't ready to do it on her own. We tried to read books, we tried to talk to her, we tried rewards charts, everything, but there weren't any groups, there weren't visits from the Health Visitor, she was our first baby and we had no idea what to do.

She's still in nappies at bedtime and there's no sign that's changing any time soon but we'll just keep going.

pp is talking about my child who is bowel incontinent and no amount of toilet training will change that..

Wouldn’t you be embarrassed to send your dc in pull-ups if they were not SN

i remember making sure my ds was toilet

trained to go to playgroup at 2.5 as they wouldn’t have taken him

It will make the parents toilet train them quite quickly if they were made to come in.
They set their kids up for this not the poor teachers.

^ This is excellent, but too much like common sense for the UK's politicians. Unfortunately we have a spineless generation of politicians who really cannot be bothered to address issues such as this.

Local authorities systematically and deliberately use the legal process as a means to delay and obstruct complying with their legal duties.

It's a chicken/egg problem and in the middle of this is a vulnerable child who is being failed due to a multitude of factors.

Parents fighting the system and systems unable to cope with the challenges of lack of funding/resources/provisions.

Parents even with ongoing tribunal appeals, the outcome heavily relies on co-operation from the local authority, which they might be legally required to do, but they do not because of lack of accountability.

The system needs a complete overhaul and for the councils to be held accountable, currently as it stands we are accepting councils to be unlawfully failing children!

Additionally it’s so easy to lay blame at the parents, when the likely factor is there is a underlying reason as to why children are not reaching their milestones however if for example a child does have a parent that is failing to aid their child to reach milestones, isn’t helping the child!

Likely the child is being failed further by adults point scoring blame and not understanding that at the CORE of all this, is a vulnerable child.

This isn't about SEN kids, diagnosed or otherwise. Obviously those situations are different.

The vast majority of NT children are capable of being potty trained. You can teach bloody babies to wee in a potty very young! The only reason these kids aren't potty trained is because parents CBA and it's become normalised.

Teachers shouldn't be having to change nappies for 5 year olds with no additional needs.

pp was referring to my son who is disabled and is bowel incontinent.

He is. He wouldn't get into a special school because the education wouldn't be appropriate for him as he has no learning disabilities and is capable of accessing a mainstream education.

Come to think of it, I remember teachers actually telling children off for having accidents sometimes. “You should have gone to the toilet earlier!” etc. That didn’t stop the accidents happening though…

It’s the curse of disposable nappies and lazy parenting basically.

For every genuine medical or SEN case there’s 9 badly parented children. Same ones that can’t sit at a table and use cutlery either.

I do get the impression that this is used as something of a stick to beat parents with.

Every child is different.

DD has autism and has sensory issues.

She is still in DryNites at night but potty trained during the day at the normal age of 2 because she likes routines, and we did regular sitting on the potty with a book as part of a routine.

She still takes a book into the loo with her every time, though! 😂

As I’ve said before, when I was in Infants at Primary School (nearly 40 years ago, before Pull-Ups were invented, I’m sure) there were a few children who wet themselves nearly every day and had to be sent home in their PE kit with a plastic bag with their wet clothes in.

Nowadays they would probably be the children who are sent in in nappies.

I’m sure there were more “special schools” around in those days too.

I’m not sure it’s all parental laziness.

I think it’s a combination of:

• Larger nappies and pull-ups being available and used by parents of children who would have simply wet themselves every day before;

• More inclusion of SEN kids in mainstream education;

• A small proportion of parents who don’t bother/ want to wait until the child is ready;

• More absorbent nappies that make it harder for a child to know when they are wet.

No easy answers, I’m sure, but I don’t think it’s any one factor.

Also one thing I thought of was when I started school it was the term (e.g Easter/Christmas not just summer) before you were 5- that’s giving some children another 7 months to pick up things like toilet training. That’s a lot of time in the life of a 4 year old.

That wasn’t what I was responding to. Just the idea it wasn’t in their job description- I think you will find it often is.

The problem is at 2/3 is quite tricky to tell if a child has SEND. My youngest has been really tricky to train, we have tried relentlessly, he does have SEND but still no diagnosis, although we are in the process. But the only reason for that is because I am pretty clued up on child development and SEND otherwise he could easily start school with no identified needs.

Women on minimum wage, most likely.

Once children are 5 years and older, surely they're able to take off their own pull up and put a new one on, unless they have a severe disability? Do parents provide these pull ups or do schools pay for them?

In France and Belgium, kids can start free, public pre-school at age 2.5 as long as they are potty trained. If it becomes apparent that the kid isn't potty trained within the first week or so of arriving, they will send them home and say 'come back when he's potty trained.' As a result, every kid (excluding SEN of course) is potty trained by age 2.5-3 because parents don't want to pay 900+ euros per month anymore for creche! They are really strict about it, which many anglophone parents find shocking.

I'm not sure that you're allowed to do that in the UK, Australia, or USA.

Perhaps it would incentivise the dc to not soil themselves in the first place.

I know it isn’t pleasant but they do need to be toilet trained unless SN

Sorry but the job description of a TA will
likely include meeting hygiene needs as needed. Mostly it won’t be teachers changing them but support staff.

Well they generally seem to make it to year six with no indication of SEN….

In fact one of last years Y6 leavers got a scholarship to a prestigious school due to her academic ability… she came to us in nappies and unable to even recognise her written name. It’s not all down to us as a school though… the other parent took over sole care and it was like she was a different child…..

I feel sorry for the teacher tbh

Is your ds in mainstream in that case?