Children being allowed to go to the toilet at school

No wonder so many kids hate school nowadays and have mental health issues with all the horrific teacher posts on here. Schools should not have worse conditions than prisons.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/20/prisons-no-toilets-england-wales

What do you mean?
All children are tarred with the same brush? Where does that stereotyping end?

My mum said that to me too. I was a really good student but I had horrific periods from age 9 (turned out to be stage 4 endometriosis).
she said if I was ever flooding and anyone refused to let me use the toilets then to walk out and she would deal with it later. I had an emergency kit in my bag of spare tights/knickers/wipes etc

I completely agree with this!

And I think medical records might be a miscommunication and what is meant is medical evidence, which is a reasonable request for a medical adjustment

Also I must say OP I’m sorry but I think you are a bit unreasonable for not taking DD to the doctor regardless of school rules. And making a lot of assumptions but not finding out fact eg about dr not writing a letter

Christ on a bike when will these stupid toilet control rules end? How can children possibly learn when needing to use the toilet and being refused?

It really is not barbaric. What is happening to children in Gaza is barbaric. What is happening to children within their own homes all over the uk is barbaric.
expecting a teenager to go two hours without a wee unless they have a medical reason reason that makes that tricky is very much not barbaric.

How? If they didn't anybody could say they were sick it's no different to work asking for a doctor's note if you miss a day

We have a policy that no one can go in the first or last 15 mins of a lesson and it’s teacher discretion between (not including those with a medical pass)
but the time of all toilet visits are recorded by the teacher in the student’s planner - a lot of patterns have shown up

The rules exist because the schools not stupid they know lots of kids fart arse around in the toilets 🤷 they were always locked when I was a kid you went at break time

I woule say it should be up to the teachers discretion as they would know the genuine cases ans the time wasters but then there would be parents playing hell about their precious baby who should have priority and ot is discrimination and others dramas

So simpler just to have a blanket rule for parents to complain about

I remember our primary school started locking the toilets because they caught a man down there taking photos of the girls ☹️

Just out of interest how would all the PPs feel if the teacher chose to leave the classroom for 10 minutes to go to the toilet? Or every teacher? That’s an hour of lost learning a day.

FYI as a secondary school teacher I very very rarely get the chance to go to the toilet at work

Their trained that way 🤣🤣🤣 they'll sit through a movie fine but magically need to piss every five minutes if it's school maybe they'd piss less if they didn't drink those huge water bottles 😂

Doesn't mean it's right. 🤔

Ugh I remember similar rules when I was at school. Luckily my daughter’s high school wasn’t as strict and she had a toilet pass after a phone call with me where I had to tell them about daughter’s then suspected and later diagnosed endometriosis. Caused horrendous pain and heavy bleeding, she didn’t have time to hang about til break time.

I’m shocked that your child’s school want/expect access to her medical records? Is that even legal? A letter from a doctor should suffice. They’re a doctor after all.

We were talking about denying a child who can often need to poo multiple times a day the basic right to toilet, not simply expecting them to go 2 hours between a wee. The lack of toileting leads to constipation. And yes I do consider it barbaric. I also understand other things fit that description and while war is not the same as toileting I still think denying our children, particularly those with higher needs, basic toileting facilities is barbaric.

On my NHS app it has notes of any consultations I’ve had with my GP. I would make an appointment and have a discussion with the GP about the frequency of her bladder and bowel habits, plus the fact that she easily gets constipated as she is holding it in all day due to not being allowed to go in lesson time / not be able to at break time due to the sheer volume of other girls using to toilet. Ask the GP to make notes in her records and possible next steps - I’m almost certain the GP will discuss the danger of holding it in, and advise you to speak to the school about a toilet pass. Once this is in her notes, print off that part only to show the school.

A few years back, we often had 7 or 8 pupils per lesson asking for the loo. Even straight after lunch when we had seen that the queues had been fine. Since they had to lock their phones away a couple of years ago, almost no requests. Strange coincidence.

I'm in Scotland so don't have the app but can you print from that? Not that I think you should need it and I think is so wrong. I totally accept the school have problems with people going to the toilet but they need to deal with that via discipline rather than penalties for kids who need to go!

You seem remarkably lackadaisical about getting help for her, and seemed to have just presumed her issues stem from the same cause as yours. Go to the GP and ask them to write a note. Ours did when one of our daughters needed it for heavy periods. No problem.

My advice will be to look at what the law says. I think the law is a bit woolly around this, but the Equality Act would apply in your daughters case of she has an observed condition, and charities such as ERIC argue with human rights laws. I think rules need to be reasonable and justifiable. Locking toilets is really, really risk not advised. In an emergency where would they go? Blanket rules tend to be frowned upon a lot.

I would do a bit of research on the law and get parents to basically write the same letter stating where the law could potentially be breached (not having bodily autonomy, causing distress, impacting learning, etc). Pointing out breaches of the law, or cases that are close to doing this (could be interpretted either way) is the thing that scares authorities to rethink their stupid policies. A lot of the time it is an idiot that thinks of them.