Children being allowed to go to the toilet at school

This is entitled parents who have no idea what parenting entails. Imagine hearing children do those things and NOT thinking wtf are parents teaching them!.

this is going to the toilet. That completely and utterly is the responsibility of parents.

How have schools lost control?
Oh I get it. You mean no one should be able to leave a class to go to the bathroom?

Then you need to speak to your headteacher to ensure your rights can be exercised. Or ask for CCTV in your classroom and relevant staff to have monitoring access when you need to go.

I'm getting really fed up with people who do not work in schools telling us what we should be doing, both with regard to the students and our own situations. We're not idiots. We don't hate kids. We don't want to see anyone distressed and we dont want to be uncomfortable ourselves. But without seismic, systemic change which none of us in classrooms can effect, we are managing as best we can. Do you not think we try to talk to our managers and governors?

Haha! I definitely don't. I stand by people being able to go to the toilet when they need to.. whatever age. I was simply telling about ONE incident when a teacher tried to stop me from using the facilities whilst on my period. When my daughter was at school she luckily didn't face the prejudice of being lumped in with all the troublemakers and was freely able to visit the facilities when needed. You sound like a sheep who believes all rules must be followed regardless. I believe in rules, but i do not believe that any human should be denied the use of facilities when needed due to some dickheads.

I went to a school in the 80s that was, let's say, experimental. The whole ethos was based on building mutual respect and good relationships and encouraging independent thought. Teachers were called by their 1st names, we had no uniforms. We did have excellent facilities at the school, which I know is becoming rarer these days due to funding. It sounds crazy, and you can call me naive, but it worked! This was in a poor area on a council estate where a large amount of kids literally had nothing. I had friends who didn't even have a bed and a friend who couldn't come to school until his Mum got paid because he had no shoes, for example. It wasn't some perfect utopia, we had a boy in class who stood on a table in class and launched himself through an upstairs window. A closed window, through the pane of glass, so as I say, there were issues! But our teachers had time to build trust with us, to make us feel we could do well in life, better ourselves. I think what we need to be looking at is why these kids nowadays don't care. They don't care if they trash everything. Why is that? Teachers are over worked and under ridiculous pressure to stick to national curriculum and meet exam grades etc and I'm damn sure most of them didn't become teachers to tick boxes! My daughter is grown up, I don't have kids in the education system now, but I'm very aware times have changed even in the 10 years since she left school. I feel very strongly that kids need to be able to learn to make decisions for themselves and to be trusted, if that's naive then fair enough. I'm guessing you are a teacher? What do you think would help, genuine question?

Well if a young adult can't go to the toilet without ripping sinks off walls, I'd say there was a loss of control, wouldn't you? It's not an attack on teachers, I think they do a thankless but valuable job, but it's clear to me something has gone wrong between negligent parents and the school.

Lack of body autonomy is not conducive to learning. I remember from my own school days spending what felt like half of my classes unable to concentrate because I was either thirsty or needed the toilet.

Briefly worked as a year 7 TA at a secondary school that locked loos in lesson times. One girl had her period come on fast during PE. I had to march her round the school trying to find one she could use. It felt awful.

I understand that graffiti and vandalism is a problem, but surely there are options other than completely removing someone's right to go to the loo?

What happens when the toilets are vandalised? What are the consequences for the child or parents? If there are any at all? You must feel so disillusioned working in that environment? How long have you been teaching? Sorry, that's a lot of questions!

I am a HLTA working in a school with a certain catchment. Majority of our children are pupil premium. Highest in the county I believe.

I teach and TA. Early intervention, less EHCPs and more money and support from the start for early years and KS1. More staff there at the start to build bonds. More intervention hubs and alternative provisions within the schools the children attend. Scrap the history, geography, bloody French etc. Social groups. Learning through play should be part of the curriculum for all years.

But that costs money and parents don’t want EHCPs scrapped. So nothing is going to change. All schools can do is find the cheapest way to protect shared areas like toilets. So I completely agree with locking them up. It costs thousands to fix. I wish, for all my opinions I had a better answer.

I feel for you. It must be incredibly frustrating because when you start working with kids you want to make a difference don't you? It makes me so sad because I love young people, they have so much untapped potential and it's heartbreaking to hear how bad things have got. My daughter is 28, working full time and doing her teaching degree in the evenings. We were discussing this today funnily enough and it seems that there needs to be more investment right from maternity services upwards. It's shocking how we are letting a whole generation down. Also though, and it might not be right for me to say this, but why is there so much bad parenting?! I raised my daughter alone while coping with bipolar and it was bloody hard, so I'm not coming at this from a position of privilege, I just don't understand the sheer bloody entitlement!

Imagine being dropped off at school in the morning and hearing your parent say, good luck, he’s been an absolute twat all morning. I’m done! Then imagine challenging that and being complained about!

I agree with you and your daughter. Bring back parenting classes and support groups. The more kind, caring adults in a child’s life may be the difference in how they treat adults in schools. Then your idea may not be too out there.

I’d want to rule out POTS. IBS could turn out to be caused by MCAS which is often comorbid with POTS. In school I was always needing to leave lessons because I needed to pee. Standing could trigger an urgency, but it was decades before I was eventually diagnosed. I’d do a poor man’s tilt table/stand test at home and see if she meet the diagnostic criteria for POTS and look at the other symptoms of dsyautonminia.

No, I don't need to do any such thing, because like the majority of adults I'm capable of not going to the toilet for two hours, and I don't have a disability requiring otherwise.

We don't have any ability to give meaningful consequences. The child is excluded for x number of days while we receive a barrage of abuse from parents who either don't think their precious angel would do anything wrong or who don't think there's anything wrong with what they did.

This is a national problem. It's not one school. It's almost all of them. For whatever reason, a small but significant percentage of children have been raised in a way that leads them to behave like this. Schools used to function however they did because parents would raise their children to behave properly, but a ridiculous number of parents now believe that it's solely the school's job to teach a child to behave (while also trying to stop us at every step of the way when we try to implement consequences).

This is a national societal issue, not one or two schools just losing control.

Go to your GP and get them to write a letter. Also, make an appointment with the school and go in to discuss with them. Listen to their point of view but insist that your child is provided reasonable access to a toilet to meet their needs. If you get any resistance make it very clear that their stance is unacceptable and this is an issue that you will not give up on. Keep escalating and follow up each meeting in writing. Even go to the school governors, local authority, your MP if needed.

I used to teach in a school with a ‘no toilet in a lesson’ rule unless the child had a toilet pass.
If the child did have a pass then I did not have access to the (medical) reason(s) why.
The reason why this was the rule was that so many children would want to go during the lessons (boredom / meeting up with a mate in the toilet etc).
I always used to tell my new Year 7s that they should do go on the way to a lesson - in the 5 min ‘travel’ slot - that way they’d be maybe 1 or 2 mins late for the lesson and this would not have a repurcussion!
But if my secondary school age child cannot go through a 55minute lesson without needing a wee then I would investigate further just in case there is a medical reason rather than them drinking a huge water bottle and at break not using the toilet as they preferred chatting to friends.

This is ridiculous. Same at my children's high school. They even sent an email this holiday to clarify the rules and explain that all toilet passes would only be temporary.
I was a teacher for 25 years. You knew which pupils were trying to skive and which ones caused trouble in the toilets and I used my knowledge and judgement.
Each pupil should be treated as an individual. Unfortunately, that is what is missing in high schools today.

Sadly, you are wrong.

The initial response from the form
tutor shows that in your daughters specific case they will be happy to give her a toilet pass. Ignore the generic letter; you’ve already had your answer but the form tutor has forgotten to act on it/ been flakey/ passed it on and not chased it up. Go back to the email or whatever correspondence you had at the time and chase up, copying in the head of year and pastoral lead . If that doesn’t get a response then copy in the headteacher. They will I am sure get back to you. Unfortunately schools are in the position because we have inadequate staffing and facilities to supervise all toilets during lesson times and kids abuse the system if allowed out to the toilet causing damage or vaping in the loos. We can’t have a free for all because we don’t have the staffing levels to ensure all kids would be safe in the toilets during lessons but I don’t know of a school or teacher who would not allow a student like your daughter out of lessons to use the facilities x

I would have took her to the gp long before now,if her stomach is like that.if there is anything wrong it needs to be dealt with,so she doesn’t have to suffer especially at school,who are not being fair at all.

Ah, well as long as you're okay then. Never mind about others. It's okay if some people don't want to stand up for their rights, but at least don't complain when others do. People of any age have the right to go to the toilet when they need to. And not everyone can hold it. Sometimes it just hits you instantly too.

Of course there are options but they are expensive.

Employ more staff to patrol corridors and supervise toilets all day (it would be hard to attract people to do the job - you'd need to pay a lot).

Add a lot more toilets. This would compound the supervision issue though and there is no capital budget and no physical space to put them in.

When building a new building, put in the Harris Academy style loos (they didn't invent them but they have a lot of new buildings due to funding being available when you take over a failing school). These are unisex and have no external doors so what you see from the corridors is a double row of cubicle doors and handbasins back to back.

I haven't worked in one of those schools but I should think sounds and smells drift out.
Vape detention systems in the toilets. Expensive but saves finding 300 of the things periodically down the back of the cisterns.

Cameras but there are obviously privacy issues plus someone has to be paid to maintain and view the things.

We wanted to install these toilets in our school.
Parents complained and it’s on hold.