Children being allowed to go to the toilet at school

Can get worse when you hit menopause due to drop in oestrogen affecting the gut microbiome. My experience

Or, schools are not engaging children properly so they will bunk of lessons to go to the toilets. This has long been a problem.

Locking toilets is against our local authorities protocols for schools and rightly so. My daughter’s school has very few issues with kids causing problems in the toilet, the school in the next catchment has massive issues with it. Having seen the lack of support they have for kids and they way they are taught, it doesn’t surprise me kids bunk off to the toilets.

My God , this example makes me so bloody angry , that poor lad.
I spoke to a woman in her 50's who this happened to when a teacher refused her - many years ago but she told me how distressing this was and how it had affected her.

I am a medical professional.
luckily there is medical support for these students, but sadly many abuse this.
Yesterday one such student came to see me eating a family bag of nachos. Diagnosed with IBS. Mmmm. Stayed with me for 60 minutes. Did not request to leave Medical. Went back to lesson and within 5 minutes used their toilet pass.
Off to Portugal for half term. I asked how they manage flights - oh I don’t need to use the toilet on a plane, only in school’.

Because even when you have cctv that shows that Bob was the one in thr toilet when the massive pile of shit was left on the seat or the floor, his mum defends his human rights to the nth degree, and swears it wasn't him. And unbelievably you can't pex a child for causing £1000 of damage.

So how would you propose they are "dealt with"?

It is really quite rare to have a job where you can just go to the toilet whenever you like tbf.

What makes you so sure it's IBS when you've made no effort to seek diagnosis or treatment? If your dd has a condition serious enough to warrant universal access to the toilet, why wouldn't you be trying to sort it out?

You can’t put CCTV in bathrooms.
We want to install ‘ open’ bathrooms, with locked cubicles, but parents complained.
The year 7s have their own toilets, then year 8/9s and then year 10/11s.
The bathrooms are not pleasant. Some girls congregate and eat lunch in there. I don’t get it….
I have an accesible toilet, I control who uses it, so those with severe medical issues can have privacy and are safe.

You haven’t had to deal with parents….

If you work in a school you may see the toilet rules very differently. Students urinating on the floor, defecating on the floor or lid of toilet seat. Deliberately blocking the toilets and causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. The children with toilet passes wandering aimlessly round school and avoiding actually going to the toilet and then returning to class. But parents refuse to believe any of this.
However, school cannot demand to see medical notes. I would challenge that, unless they were meaning it might be easier for you to take a screenshot of the notes showing diagnosis rather than asking for a formal letter from the doctor. Either way it does sound like your daughter is struggling and maybe a visit to the GP might get her some medical help?

I would like to point out that us primary school teachers have considerably less opportunity to go to the toilet than your little darlings do!

if you saw what a lot of pupils ate, you may understand why they get bowel issues.

I was talking about your dd. Don't you want to be sure it's IBS and not anything worse if she's that bad? Or look at which foods might trigger it, if it is?

Yes because we can position 2 teachers at the doors to manage the queue and listen for any untoward behaviour.

Suspend them and then what? You can't pex a child for violently assaulting another child, let alone for vandalism.
So we have toilet escort. You might not like it but it works.

Can you take that to the school's governing body? I don't think anywhere allows willy nilly access to a medical record without a court order. Actually when I worked in the NHS, some years ago admittedly, such a request would be refused. If you have a good relationship with the GP surgery, you might get some advice from the practice manager?
Of course if you are taking her to see the GP anyway (and I definitely would) then you could raise it with the GP, just to get advice. The trouble with IBS (I have it) is that its a diagnosis of exclusion. If they find nothing by tests and there are no other symptoms except a hard to manage bowel, then they call it IBS. There is stuff you can do to manage it and if your daughter was an adult and posting for herself I would mention some OTC things that have helped me. I also do find that when my IBS is flaring I do need to pee more as well.

I can’t believe the unsympathetic, hard responses on here. No wonder kids are damaging themselves by not drinking all day when using the toilet is such an issue. What happens if a girl has a heavy period? Is she allowed to use the loo? Everyone gets caught short now or then or gets a bug. Are they supposed to shit themselves?

That is a medical issue then. every school I've worked in for three decades has a 5 min change over between every lesson and no teacher would be raising issues if someone was 1-2 mins late having been.to the loo on route.

I keep such documents in a locked cupboard, in my room. I am the only person who has access to them. I give the toilet pass and say ‘ medical letter in Welfare office’ on the database.
We may need medical evidence for exams access, so it also serves for this.