Mayflower primary school - nappy changing facilities for school aged children

Inclusion. If you close a load of special schools in the name of inclusion all the kids who would have had a place in them will be in mainstream school and many will have personal care needs.

I have 2 sons with SEN. Both were late to toilet train. One was in a special school so there was no problem with changing nappies etc and helping to train him. The second wasn’t diagnosed till he was 8, so I was called out numerous times during his reception years to deal with the accidents he’d had. Maybe they thought I was a shit parent, I don’t know, but I do know I’d been toilet training him for over a year before he started school and he was still having issues.

Most kids will have undiagnosed SEN (and may be left undiagnosed for many years) some will be parents who cba, or see it as someone else’s job - those would hopefully be a minority.

There is such a rise in the number of children not toilet trained by school age. (4/5)

I was a nursery teacher as an NQT and we didn't take children at 3 into the school nursery until they were toilet trained. Delayed start meant they were back, toilet trained within a fortnight! Out of 104 three year olds, I would say maximum of three per year weren't trained.

My DD and DGC’s, ‘gentle parenting’, no SEN issues.
Just started toilet training one DGC, now ready for school in September. ( was 4 last month).
He just refuses to be trained. He is a big boy, tall for his age and still in a nappy. He doesn't stay with us during the day any longer as changing his nappy is awful.
I wonder if it would have been easier earlier and later is more difficult. She is now delaying him starting school as she doesn't want him to go to school whilst he still soils himself.

I don't know why this is the case, lack of expectation, lack of routine. Mine were trained at two.

Because past governments decided to close many of the special schools to save money and lots of SEN kids are stuck in mainstream schools that can't meet their needs!

But that's not new.

More and more parents are both working full time now with their children in nursery Monday to Friday. They need to work, and have every right to work, but I do think that may be partly what’s causing this problem.

I am aware of this as a I have a,child in a SEN,school for children with severe and profound learning disabilities

we have four special school,s in my L A all of which have doubled in capacity in the past 10\15 years
the needs of these kids are very complex so would never have flown under the radar
any ideas what is causing thus?

Yes, underfunding of the HV Teams, and the complete decimation of Sure Start Centres has SO much to answer for.

For you maybe, but not for many people. What happens if your child hasn’t read the book so doesn’t know what they are supposed to be doing?

often online forums are full of contradictory advice and judgment so for many they don’t help with problems

A lot of people have less support now. Less of a village to go to and ask for help with things or to get proper help.

The closure of things like sure start again reduce availability of support. DS is 15 and when he was little our sure start centre offered specific support around potty training but now it seems there is nothing?

so if parents don’t know where to start, or they try and it doesn’t work it’s often much harder to get proper non judgemental support

This this and the this.
And a cost of living crisis so partners are working more.
And a housing crisis so potty training is not as high a prior with frequent unplanned moves and children are less settled.

Schools offer places from age 2 now in some schools, 3 in others.

A cousin of mine (30 years ago) was late to toilet train, and ended up going to a special school because of it. He is autistic but other then toileting, his needs could have been met in mainstream, and he transferred back at around 7/8.

If he was starting school today I suspect the LA would have compared the cost of a special school place against the cost of fitting a changing unit, and sent him to mainstream. Even kids with extensive needs often start out at mainstream today, as there just aren't many specialist places available, so it can take years to secure a place.

When my first child was born 10 years ago I could go to the health visitors clinic without an appointment twice a week if I wanted. I could go to the Surestart centre any times between 9-5 on a week day. Four years later when my second child was a baby the Surestart had been closed down and the HV clinics were by appointment only and 3 weeks wait. Toilet training was during covid times so next to little support. Thankfully he was my second child and so I had some experience already. Dread to think what support there is now.

My 9 year old still wears pull ups at night and still has continence issues, he wasn’t diagnosed with any SEN until he was 7.

He certainly wasn’t soiling because he was lazy or I couldn’t be bothered.

It can take years to get a diagnosis.

When my DD started school she was in nappies. At 10 she's still in nappies. If she survives to 20 she'll still be in nappies.

Yet at school starting age she was allocated to our local mainstream school.

It took 2 years - despite obvious medical evidence from when she was a few months old that she was always going to have serious health and development issues - and constant fighting by us (and her school who were actually wonderful) for her to be allocated an appropriate SEN school.

When I was a kid she wouldn't have set foot near a mainstream school.
In the support group of other parents with children with the same conditions the only one they hasn't had the same fight is one who went private right away.

Lack of specialist provision is the biggest reason.

That we don't stick children like DD into children's hospitals/homes and pretend they don't exist anymore is wonderful progress. That there is pretence that everyone should go through mainstream education is absolutely not progress.

Most NT children are physically and emotionally capable of being able to use the toilet by the age of 4 but sometimes their parents haven’t managed to train them for whatever reason. Sometimes it’s laziness yes. Other times it’s disruptive home lives, inability to take time off work, mental health problems, health problems within the family.

Other children have SEN. In the old days children that we now recognise had SEN were institutionalised and chained to radiators. They were not expected to attend a mainstream school.

At 4 it can be difficult to know the difference.

There isn’t enough SEN schools or help in place for children who struggle.

Ive worked with many parents and families who’ve struggle with potty training.

My SIL has a child with a rare genetic condition, didn’t master potty training until in secondary school, he needed a specialist school however council refused for multiple years until she had to appeal… it took over 4 years of fighting.

Loads of children clearly have SEN however waiting lists are as long as 4/5 years…. So because they are undiagnosed they will be in the “needs are increasing” category.

So you see it daily in the nursery so surely understand the struggles;
Single parents exhausted and can’t push toileting issue fully.
Lack of extended family support again to continue pushing skills.
Two parents working exhausted and no energy to push through.
Many believe children “toilet train when ready”. Some consider toilet training to include washing hands afterwards (so might not pass the study despite being fully dry and wiping properly).
But similar to brushing teeth and hair it’s easier for parents to do it than nag.
For some it might be financial due to washing/drying expense.
Sometimes these life lessons make a parent feel mean and they want their child to be their BFF.

Two separate reasons.

One is because there are more and more parents that take no responsibility and send children who don't have additional needs into school who are not toilet trained. We started noticing this at the school I was teaching at over 20 years ago, but it has become far, far more of an issue.
I think that's for a wide variety of reasons, but one of them is that schools, or Nurseries, or playgroups aren't allowed to refuse to take children who aren't toilet trained. I have dc in their 20s, and they couldn't start at playgroup until they were 2.5 and toilet trained, which was normal then. Nowadays there are many people that don't even try to teach their children to use the toilet or potty until they are 3, 3.5 or 4.

The other is, the has been a massive increase in the number of children with special needs. Massive. None of the children I taught in special school in the 1990s would even get an EHCP, let alone get an appropriate school place if they had an EHCP. There really has been an explosion in the numbers, which it seems no-one is aware of unless you work in a Nursery or Primary school, or associated services. Where I live, all schools are expected to somehow look after multiple children with really significant needs.

My friend is a K2 teacher in an international school close to a large VW plant and she said to me she doesn’t know what the heck has happened to German kids, they are very much not potty trained since 2023

In an ideal world, YANBU but it's not an ideal world so YABU.

Not much help, I know, but with appointments and assessments etc. being subject to such a long wait list and school attendance being compulsory, how can you assure every single child meets this marker of progress or has received proper diagnosis of any issues in time to start school.

There's too many people and not enough help for everyone exactly when they need it for everything to run to schedule.

• More SEN schools
• Ilegal exclusions from school