Mayflower primary school - nappy changing facilities for school aged children

That depends on the level of SEN as special school provision varies massively across the UK
For some children it may well be impossible to train them if they have a significant level of SEN.

I’m not calling you a loser parent at all.
What you need to realise is that there are loser parents who can’t be bothered / nothing to do with SEN, disability. This is sad and awful for the kids. Drugs, alcohol, violence get in the way of parenting and then there’s the just can’t be bothered to parent parent. It’s sad.

This is AI generated but I'm sure you could look in more detail if you fancy googling

Do you have kids in school? How many kids in their class are not potty trained? And have no ASN?

It's not about excusing anyone, the changing facilities will be primarily for children with ASN, diagnosed or not.

The fact this will help some children who are suffering neglect at home is only a positive to me. Are there neglectful parents? Parents who can't be bothered? Parents who don't know how? Probably do you think your judgement helps? My eldest has ASN and was potty trained not long after turning 2. He has other support needs though. Which I am sure I am blamed and judged for too. He's only recently been able to wipe himself at 7. Prior to that he held all day I told he got home and ran to the bathroom. He once, once in 2 years, pooed at school, and there was noone to help. We got a phonecall and had to pick up and incredibly distressed boy who had done all he could but left a mess that needed cleaned up. He was beside himself. And none of that was not being bothered, it was tight muscles from recurring prolonged seizures, differences in growth from hormonal issues, it was a child with serious sensory sensory issues for whom the though of getting poo on himself was and remains massively distressing but he does it and it took years, actual years of getting him there.

In a school with changing facilities and someone to help my son would have been saved that indignity that he still talks about months later. I can assure you we aren't lazy and don't not care and dedicated our whole lives to getting him independent. And noone knew he had that issue because he IS embarrassed he did work so hard and still it took time to be able to wipe himself after a poo. And my son has dedicated loving parents. Why wouldn't you want a child without that to have support on school.

What is wrong with people

The problem is the people wanting to pin this on a parenting issue while discounting social issues in the cases of genuine neglect, SEN, lack of provision for SEN education, lack of available resourcesto diagnose early etc etc

I disagree. The problem is people wanting to pin everything on SEN while discounting the role parents have to play in teaching their children to use the toilet and perform basic self help skills.

Or maybe we need to be asking what the fuck is in the water that we have so many more children with SEN than we did 20 years ago.

I agree that SEN will account for som children still being in nappies at 4 and not being ready for school, but it also needs to be remembered that SEN isn’t an excuse not to toilet train. Many children with SEN in mainstream school will physically develop in line with their peers, so while it might be harder to teach them, it is not impossible.

Yes, I do. As a fellow parent you’d be really surprised because they’re not going to admit it. Children with diagnosed needs or clearly some needs that are undiagnosed or have a medical condition are easy to spot and different to those with parents who can’t be bothered.

Ive had parents tell me they’ve tried, their child isn’t ready at 4! Once I’ve made it clear to parents and child they are expected to try it’s amazing how quickly they get it!

I wonder if the need for toilet changing spaces in school for inclusion reasons has blurred the lines a bit for some parents of children without SEN.

I can remember being told very firmly by my mother that at school I was expected to go to the toilet by myself and that the teachers weren't there to help me with toileting (I was fully trained but I think I went through a phase where I wanted a grown up with me or something). The idea of sending a child in who still needed nappies changing was unthinkable to my parents generation.

You don't have those clear boundaries anymore now that schools are inclusive and I think some parents are taking the mickey.

@ButterCrackers so they are going down the child protection route? Or is this still say so. I had to really advocate for my GC, because of a lack of understanding by the teachers. It will be interesting if in a couple of years if those children get diagnoses. For younger primary school children, they are still feeling the effects of no GP, incontinence etc appointments during and after Covid.

In 1999, my DD started to show signs of having special needs. She went to a main stream nursery. It quickly became apparent that she wouldn't cope with main stream school. She was switched to a special needs nursery, she also needed her glue ear sorting out. She then easily went into appropriate SEN primary and high schools. In 2004, the plan was to make more schools inclusive and close the SEN provisions. I was part of the campaign, even held up banners in the street. MPs got involved. No-one listened, schools became inclusive and as the years went by, increased their input into safeguarding etc, all with inadequate funding or support.

Then we got a Conservative government who, loved equality, so equally starved all services of funding.
There's increased social issues, increased population, which we could argue about all day. But it meant increased pressure on all services.

In my elder GC case, the incontinence team wouldn't look at her issues until 7 years old. She wasn't diagnosed with a MPA and there were only so much laxatives they would give, which meant constant overflow, so she was in nappies until 7/8, until hospital got involved.

In my youngest GC case, Covid has meant that only last year, her dyspraxia and moderate hearing loss has been properly addressed.
There was a much better system for hidden ( higher functioning) disabilities, twenty years ago. There are children in my GC school who would have been in SEN settings and would actually be doing better. Those schools were closed.
These articles need to state what referrals have been made, because if a child isn't potty trained because of laziness, a CIN referral needs to start. But they love to blame parents for the lack of provision.

I have a friend who is a primary school teacher. She hasn’t had problems in her school but it is something that other teachers are experiencing - not from SEN but from lack of engagement with their child’s needs. For my kids toilet training was straightforward as I put the effort in. I have a large family so there was a baby on the way so I needed to get my 1.5 years to before 2yrs out of nappies asap. Once my youngest was born I had no baby on the way. It was so easy as she was motivated to be out of nappies. I liked the cost savings from not needing pull-ups. Your points are valid but be careful you aren’t excusing the can’t be bothered parents. This isn’t just for toilet training but covers all aspects of child rearing.

Do you personally know parents who can't be bothered? Because I don't know any. My sister for example whose eldest has autism and trained at 4 and still has accidents at 7 has a 4 and 3 yr old who were out of nappies at 2.

The problem is the people wanting to pin this on a parenting issue while discounting social issues in the cases of genuine neglect, SEN, lack of provision for SEN education, lack of available resourcesto diagnose early etc etc

There are parents who can’t be bothered. If this was tackled then there’d be time for the kids who, through no fault of the parents, need a nappy at school. I’ve not seen people on the thread refusing that special needs exist.

All the children I have known that started school in nappies had recognised disabilities and an EHCP in fact one boy who started school in nappies at my older sons mainstream school, was apparently the only child to have ever been in nappies in reception, he had a diagnosis of global development delay and a rare chromosome disorder and an EHCP.

Completely agree with the above.

Children who can’t take clothes on/off.
Children who sulk if they can’t do something straightaway and not used to trying.
Children wet themselves because parents don’t like to remind them as they get cross and won’t go to the toilet when we ask because they want to play and won’t try.
The list goes on!

The expectations from parents about what their child can do is low. Parents talk about them only being babies, therefore not expecting them to tidy or pick up food they’ve dropped on the floor.

I find the ‘rougher’ parents often have more expectations of their children or their children have had to get on with things themselves(as sad as that is). It’s the pandering parents who can’t bear their child to be upset for a moment that are much worse and their lack of expectation on manners!

Lol I'm 51 I remember my friend being quietly led away when I was in infant school
And when I looked down there was a puddle of wee
My dh is 50 and remember, s a teacher taking him away to be changed when he was 4 or5 due to a poo accident although he does actually think he was blamed for another child's accident
Small children have always had accidents.

No, I think this furore is because some children in school are not potty trained. I cifentally in my son's P2 class (in Scotland so kids 6-7) 1 child is still in nappies, he has significant additional needs, there's 1 child in the P1 class also and he was a 23 week old preemie who had a brain bleed. That's 2 kids out of 60, no other kids started school still in nappies. That's at least in part I suspect due to most kids being 5 here when they start and deferral u til they are 5 with a P1 start if kids aren't ready and provision of an extra nursery year in that circumstance. I know the parents of both kids in my son's school who still wear pull ups and they are extremely involved, brilliant parents with kids with special needs. Thank goodness our school is a lovely and inclusive place. Including of son's epilepsy and associated ADHD. So yes. This thread is an ableist nightmare refusing to believe developmental delays and and inclusive education models are the main reason for changing facilities being required in schools.

Ableist nightmare? Do you mean that you think that the loser parents who can’t be bothered to toilet train their non disabled kids have an undiagnosed disability themselves?

My response was to suggestion that those who aren't potty trained should attend sen schools. There are children in mainstream with all kinds of ASN, because that's how the education system has decided to educate. Inclusively. Inclusive education means changing facilities and staff to fulfil it. This thread is an ableist nightmare

Agreed ds could probably have been fully reliable a lot earlier if we'd started earlier. I think we could have ditched the nappies 3 months earlier then he would have been fully reliable in every setting by 2 and 3/4s.

Luckily we didn't keep holding out as advised by the NHS and seemingly everyone around us and just cracked on.

I'm now also thinking we may have missed the night time training boat. He had loads of dry nights when we first ditched day time nappies. But the narative around is you can't train night time and you should wait it out. Well at 4.5 ds is only dry 50% of the time at night. I was fully out of nappies at this age but my mum did lift me for a wee. Maybe we should all be going back to this approach as modern guidance seems to be a complete non-sense for day time training?

All kids are different even without disabilities
I cant remember exactly when i started training my oldest son as hes 18 now ,but it was from around 2-21/2 and it took ages before he waa reliably dry ,he was just turned three before i could,take him out with no accidents
In the great scheme of things most kids will train between 2 and 3
My oldest was toilet trained by the time he started nursery so it was no big deal
My youngest has complex disabillities so it wss a whole different ball game with him.

This thread isn’t about SEN.

Yes exactly I don't think every kid does these signs of readiness but it doesn't mean they're not ready. But I think if the government doesn't want some children to have slipped through the potty training net they really ought to change the guidance on the NHS website to align with the eric guidance.

Parents could be very diligently following the NHS advice and just completely miss the boat!

I think taking my kids with me to the toilet and having a potty that looked like a mini toilet was key in potty training. It was thee from turning 1

I think with 3 and 4 year olds you are going to have a much easier time if they are eager to train but a far harder time if they are resistant. It's a gamble I didn't want to make so I did it around 2 when they don't have as much of an opinion.