Teachers: do you find it hard? (high school toilets)

My DD has IBD so had a time out pass plus access to disabled toilets. Her school didn't issue specific toilet passes to save kids embarrassment. Great idea and can also be used by anxious children.

Her previous school used toilet passes and told old her she could use the disabled toilets if she needed to go during break or lunch as there were always long queues during those time.

She would constantly be challenged and once had a teacher banging on the disabled toilet door ordering her to come out because someone with "an actual disability" needed to use it. She was mortified.

I transferred her out of that school because of their lack of pastoral care.

I hated this when I was at school! I was a straight A student, never been in trouble in my life and the one time in 5 years I was brave enough to ask to go I was told no! I was on my period and it went through my trousers and all over the chair! Thankfully they were black trousers and it was my last lesson of the day so I could run home.

Ooooo in front of a class? That is mortifying.

I puked in a bin inside the classroom 😂🤦🏼‍♀️

Toilets are a truly difficult situation in high schools. Firstly as a high school teacher I can tell you that I am the adult that can’t go to the toilet whenever I want to! I have worked in schools for over 10 years and never left a lesson to go to the toilet. Wasn’t always easy (especially later on in pregnancies) but for safe guarding I can’t just disappear.
The issues are:

1. Once you let one go, they all want to go and then If you say no they spend the rest of the lesson complaining how unfair you are. Usually resulting in you having to remove pupils and give them detentions.
2. Some absolute abuse it and disappear for a walk or to hang out in the toilets ALL THE TIME. Missing loads of learning.
3. Senior leaders record if you send pupils to the toilet and if it becomes a pattern or you send more than one a lesson they will come and ‘have a word’ with the member of staff.

I have been picked up many times for sending pupils to the toilets, and I can’t do with the aggravation this year so I will be going for a blanket NO unless they have a toilet pass or look like they may have an accident in the room.

They are allowed to go in transition in our school but we don’t have a break time, only lunch. I feel bad but I also understand the problems it causes for the school and me personally. Hopefully pupils will remember to go when they can.

Also make sure you push to get that toilet pass sorted ASAP

It’s absolutely a human right, the school have got a hard job though due to so many issues that arise through use out of break times. It’s easy to say but they should be allowed, it just doesn’t occur to a lot of us that it’s not that simple. My kids school refurbished the toilets which got trashed during lesson time. The cost was the toilets out of action for ages and nearly £50k of damage which meant less toilets for the kids to use. There were instances of self harm, kids did it then to release tension. 2-3 meeting from
different lessons wasn’t noticed and they were found doing dangerous TikTok’s. Quite honestly don’t know how they are expected to keep up with it all, we demand a lot. You can’t adequately keep a child safe with this sort of stuff but at the same time they do need to use the toilet.

Shame all school trips will be out of the question now. Poor kids missing out on what was always good fun.

It’s an amazing education for everyone involved, and I can’t imagine why a single teacher or student wouldn’t be enjoying themselves at school.

honestly, I think soiling yourself is at a different level of embarrassment even than vomiting. If I had to vomit I would do what you did. But the other thing…no.

I respect your opinion and of course we aren't the same. The point I am making is that we all have to respect that there is a time we can go to the loo and times we can't go, both teachers AND students. I wish you could see the disruption it causes as 1 student after another asks to go to the loo once you have let the first one go! It's purely practical, it really is!

I've puked in a bin outside the door before now. I've been in front of management once for leaving the room. Full on verbal warning.

GREAT education system.

If you were sick to your stomach and actually about to soil yourself, you would leave the room regardless of consequences rather than have an accident in front of students.

I think 99% of reasonable adults would be furious there was such a festering discipline and safeguarding problem at the school that students can’t use the toilet without being beaten, rather that their child was allowed to use the toilet when they needed it.

I don’t think your second paragraph is relevant.

Teachers and students are not the same. Teachers have additional “rights” within a school, and obviously additional responsibilities that students don’t have. No one thinks they should be treated the same, including (or even especially) teachers! But when the toilet issue is discussed, suddenly the difference is brought up.

And there are plenty of jobs you can't - dentist in the middle of a filling, driving examiner in the middle of someone's test, crane driver up in the air etc etc. I'd never leave a class of 30 to go to the loo - it's against my statutory duty to leave students unattended.

I'd agree in principle that they should be able to go - but the domino effect of the next 10 asking means it's not possible!

This is a worry I have with my son who has just started secondary. He hates to use urinals and I don’t blame him, it seems like a big intrusion of privacy. And often times he goes from 0 to 100 on the urge of needing to do a poo

Ridiculous. I went to a shit school with lots of behavioural problems. However there was never ever any bullshit about whether people were allowed to go to the toilet. It just wasn’t an issue and I can’t understand why it’s such an issue today. Just let the kids go to the loo ffs. Twice a day at break and lunch isn’t enough. I use the loo more often than that.

I find it very concerning. I’m a secondary teacher and it’s up to us what we do. I always let girls go - I’m a bit tougher with boys - particularly if I reckon they just fancy a break but it’s a pretty basic human right to go to the toilet.

A lot of this will come down to SLT of the school, but classroom teachers are often quite divided and entrenched on toilet. I’m now SLT and our policy is that students must always be allowed to go to the toilet and yet we still have some parental complaints about teachers saying no and very occasionally we’ve had children wet or soil themselves when they weren’t allowed to go. I sometimes get tired of telling people that they should not be stopping kids from going. It’s most often newer staff who then get used to the system but a few people are oddly stubborn about it. This half I expect to be saying this a lot.

This thread and a few others this week make me feel that it is high time children at school had some of the same rights as adults
Its school not the army

My high school had a one way system which was introduced in my final year. Each school year group had a block of toilets. This caused chaos as if needed the loo between classes and you weren’t walking past your year’s loos, you had to walk to them and use those toilets. Then most of the time, you were late. As sometimes could have walked around 1.5 times around the school.

After a pupil’s parents kicked off as he got detention for using the wrong year group’s toilets during a lesson as he had a nose bleed, the pupils could use any toilets on the way to the next lesson. Though the toilets stayed per year group for breaks

Part of the problem is SLT roaming the corridors and then asking kids what class they are out of and then that teacher gets a trip to the office to explain themselves.
The teachers are then given a black mark and if they are caught again etc etc. it’s ridiculous but this is the way some schools are run.

email her tutor and let them know so they can speak to her about what to do.

OP I would have let your dd go, I've never seen a child upset about needing to go though.

Same! I've told mine if anyone ever tries to say no then to just walk out and i will deal with any consequences.It is hard if they are shy and worry about doing things wrong....we aren't there in that moment to support them 😥

I get asked within a few minutes of the lesson starting if they can go to the toilet. When it was lunch or interval right before.
I did let one pupil go yesterday, and 5 more asked during the lesson. Clearly seeing me as a soft touch!

I think there is an SEN connection. When some analysis was done by a SENCO I worked with, students with SEN were much more likely to ask to go in lessons. The curriculum and teaching style is so demanding these days that it can get intolerable and/or sensory challenges of being in what are very large classes these days.

That and the proliferation of vaping plus students' desire to check their phones (where these are allowed on site) accounts for most of the issue.

Shame for those with a desperate need to go of course.

Parents wouldn't thank us for an education in loo studies I don't think.