School bathroom

@Hobbi I remember all the fences and gates going up when I was in primary school. It was just after the Dunblane shooting.

Maybe we have more random nutters in the U.K.?

Yes kids are tested to death and no teacher supports it,

Toilets are a problem that won’t be solved ever, unless there is more money in the system.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I know it's for safeguarding reasons. My question is why it's deemed necessary here but not in other countries? Do other countries not care about their children? Are British people genetically worse? Is there any evidence that fencing children in, removing their toilet rights, isolating them for normal teenage behaviours or testing them until they're wrung dry has any intellectual, health, emotional or safety benefits?

Other things that happen in school toilets include self harm, sexual harassment/assault, bullying, vandalism (not just graffiti). Now that probably also happened in 90s and earlier but people are more aware now

i’ve seen so many posts on this recently and just find it appalling.

What has changed since I was at school in the 90’s? There was always a bit of graffiti, smoking and skiving but you can’t lock toilets because of this. It’s inhumane!

British school have fences for safeguarding reasons. To keep people out.

My DD’s school was on a public right of way. People walking dogs across the yards, random nutters wandering in. Eventually the council had to change the right of way so that a big fence could be built.

There's a big increase in adhd diagnoses here too, at younger and younger ages. I think the general thought is that it might have to do with increased screen time. But that's another difference, in lower schools at least they don't use screens much at all, it's all physical textbooks and workbooks, no laptops or ipads except for occasional IT lessons, no online homework. So there's a natural reduction in screen time which might help with focus and behaviour (but on the other hand, children get phones at much younger ages here)

@Hobbi I made the comment about fences as another poster said their country don’t have them at their schools as they trust the pupils. I don’t know why other countries don’t deem them necessary. I seem to remember from other threads that Scottish schools are not so obsessed by them, especially in rural areas.

Interesting that @Natsku says behaviour and attitudes are slowly getting worse in their country, as I think they are from Northern European country.

I know what you were saying about fences, I'm wondering why you think other countries don't see the need for them?

I suspect the answer is complicated and impossible to explain on social media. We do need to simultaneously expect more from parents in terms of their responsibilities while also providing support for families - a better educated and better paid EY workforce would be one thing. See education as an investment - large class sizes and rushed teacher training are false economies. A more equitable society seems to correlate with better education and behaviour outcomes in other countries, so stop voting Tory. An interesting, relevant curriculum that values diversity and a range of abilities would help, with fewer high stakes assessments. Make school a place where children are happy to attend, put them at the centre of educational objectives. Stop and reverse the commodification of education, the de facto privatisation of schools and subsequent inequities in inspection criteria which favours academies and SCITTs has been divisive and hopelessly inefficient. Look to what our near cousins in Northern Europe do for some inspiration before ham-fistingly aping the far east.

@Hobbi I’m just explaining why schools in this country have fences and gates.

If you think children are being misdiagnosed and it is just bad behaviour, who do you think that is down to and who is responsible for solving it and how?

@crumblingschools

Don't really understand your point about fences - why would British schools need to keep people out more than other countries? Is that another way in which we're genetically inferior?
Your question about how children are raised is the very point - by your reckoning, most of the people on this site must have feral kids but that doesn't seem to match what people say. And as @Natsku says, spending better doesn't mean spending more. We spend tons on it, our special needs schools are superb, when they're not being used as holding cells for kids who won't behave. The UK has five times the amount of SEN children than the European average - I find that to be extremely revealing and almost certainly is evidence that we're diagnosing and excusing rather than dealing with problems. Again, the inability of contemporary secondary schools to provide toilet facilities is theirs to solve, not my children's and not children with medical needs, periods or water infections - all of which have been ignored and children severely sanctioned by local schools.

@crumblingschools DD's small class is 14 pupils, the other classes in her year are around 20, bit less maybe. In 1st grade her class was 24 I think and that was considered a large class, large enough for the teacher to apologise for it being so large.
Teachers are generally well respected in society, it's a job that is not easy to get into. But children and teenagers especially aren't as respectful as they used to be, that's a problem everywhere not just the UK but I don't think the level is the same because teachers are otherwise well respected so bad attitudes aren't reinforced by parents etc. But there's definitely problems and getting worse all the time.

Children are brought up to be much more independent than British children, my DD is constantly shocked when I tell her how children are treated in the UK.

The psychologist provision is from health care spending, not education spending (and sadly its not so nice and accessible for adults, unless you have good occupational health care that covers it)

How many pupils are there to each class @Natsku?

Do you bring your children up to respect school, education, teachers in your country? Is education valued?

Fences and gates on schools are not just to keep students in, they are to keep people out.

@Hobbi they obviously do spend more on provision if a child can see the school psychologist within a week. Many of our children are lucky if they can see one within a year.

Are the children brought up by their parents to be independent from a young age, to be responsible for themselves @Natsku?

These issues aren't new, bullying in the toilets is as rife 40 years ago, we had them locked and had to fetch a key from the office during the day, at break and lunch a member of staff was on duty, there was two blocks for girls (9 toilets in total) for 400 girls (and same for boys) better but still queues.

Bullying is common elsewhere too, violence in toilets was a major issue when I lived in the USA and they had monitored loos etc. pretty sure there's problems elsewhere but English language publications don't report on them. The small minority ruining it for everyone else

My daughter who is 15 going on 16 says her school has 1 bathroom that all sexes have to use. I find this utterly disgusting. How are boys and girls sharing the same bathroom. It's a joke.

I do think they spend well on SEN, don't know if it's that they spend more but at least they seem to spend well - every child in my DD's school gets regularly assessed by the special Ed teacher so anyone struggling with maths or literacy is quickly helped, DD's class gets several hours a week with the special Ed teacher helping those that need more help. Other classes get time too (but at least for DD's year group her class gets extra because of the extra need) and moving up to a higher level of support seems relatively easy (ds who is still in nursery has been moved up to enhanced support without any struggle)

They also seem to do a lot of work on emotional health and skills which perhaps helps with behaviour. This year dd has been doing aggression replacement training and I've even noticed a big change in her attitude at home since that.

@Natsku

It's a shame that so many people have such low expectations of our children as well - I've seen the trust model work. As for SEN, someone will be along to suggest that whatever country you're referring to must spend more on SEN provision, when that's almost certainly not the case. We love to label our badly behaved and not so bright as SEN here, especially if we're middle class.

@Natsku

Thank you - you have backed up my points exactly. Hope your children do as well as they deserve.

It is shocking that everyone is inconvenienced over this. It will be due to anti social behaviour. I'm a teacher and vandalism, vaping and anti social behaviour has resulted in some toilets being closed. Vandalism has had a knock on effect on teacher toilets too- same pipe network. When perpetrators are identified they should be dealt with severely and made to pay for the damage.

@Hobbi My personal experience of European schools is that students are trusted more in all aspects of school life and respond positively.

I think this is one of the key differences. The children appear to be trusted so much more in schools in my country. My daughter is in her last year of lower school (13 years old so equivalent of year 8 in the UK), they are trusted to use the toilets appropriately and they do, they are trusted to go by themselves in cross-country skiing and orienteering and to come back and they do, there's no fences or gates around the school - they are trusted not to leave during school time and for the most part they do (there's a small shop nearby, sometimes some children will sneak off there during break but most don't), no uniforms or dress code, they are trusted to dress sensibly and they do (this I also see with the upper school teenagers, they don't dress ridiculously like people so often fear teenagers will do if there's no school uniforms). In the upper school she's going to in the autumn they are trusted, and expected, to get themselves from their school to the lower school a couple of kilometres away to get to certain lessons, within the 15 minute break between lessons. They are still trusted to use toilets appropriately and I haven't heard of any issues there (SIL is in her last year at upper school) but I know there are issues in schools in other towns (though I used to clean an upper school in a city and their toilets were always fine, no vandalism or even much mess)

SEN policy is to include as much as possible, though they have a separate class for those children whose needs are too great for the normal curriculum. DD's class is mostly children with SEN, they deal with it by making it a very small class (I appreciate that that's not possible in the UK at the moment) and having the same class and same teacher for the last 4 years so they all know really well how to work with each other. And the big thing is there's so much support for students and their families, I know that's something the UK is struggling with due to cuts and whatnot but here students have the right to meet with the school psychologist (every school has a local psychologist assigned to it) within a week if they need to (and the next day in urgent cases), as well as other pastoral care staff.

That hasn't been my experience of current schools, my current school has only just introduced constant supervision around toilets during break and lunch. Until then they had tried making new shiny nice toilets technic so the kids would be nice to them, they just trashed them unfortunately.

I don't know what breaks are like in the schools your talking about as the large trust here and the LEA schools, plus the small trust school I work at still have what I would have considered normal break times 15-20 minutes morning break 40 minutes to an hour lunch very similar to what we had. Kids are allowed to do what they want with this time, only the school with an hour lunch runs lunch time clubs. The only odd thing now is that lunch always seems to be so late, anywhere from 1-1.30pm start time. We have no gaps between lessons, they did try that at one point but the kids would use it as an excuse to wonder around to much and not go to lessons on time.

My Y10 DS has never been to the toilet in school, he's too scared. I'd much prefer there was one locked block that the teachers patrol, so he can feel safe going for a bloody wee. The state of behaviour in schools is shocking.

I think you’ve missed my point.

@MigGirl

A little bit of reading comprehension failure there on your part. I specifically referred to the strict, zero tolerance policies favoured by many MATs over the last 15 years or so - that wouldn't nearly take us back to the 90s. I don't think you'd find children hanging around near toilets or inside during breaks in most schools now - partly because there are very few schools that actually provide breaks as we would recognise them.

I'm not sure how this is relevant. But, on the off chance it is, I'll summarise the Swedish situation: no, they absolutely do not leave it to families. They are broadly in favour of inclusion and integration but are constantly reviewing the evidence as to how this approach affects different children. It is illegal to keep a register of disabilities in Sweden and therefore less categorisation of children. In Italy, inclusion is preferred but individual needs are considered. Again, in Italy pedagogy is more important than clinical diagnosis and this is reflected in teacher training. The recess good work regarding SEND and teacher training in the UK up to about 2012 but the obsession with breaking teachers as quickly as possible and allowing MATs to train their own teachers according to their own ethos has, in my opinion, severely limited this.

According to the data, the UK has 5 times the rate of SEN than is average in the EU - make of that what you will in terms of who diagnosis actually serves in the UK. 5 times.

I'm still not sure of the relevance to the current topic, children with genuine SEND are more likely to be affected negatively by a 'no toilet' policy.

A strange but perhaps apt analogy might be in what has happened in football stadium toilets over the last decade. They used to be almost literal cess pits, were heavily policed and were foci for violence and vandalism. A trend of making them attractive, clean and properly equipped began with the building of new stadiums; they are no longer policed and fans seem to have responded well to being trusted and treated like humans. There is almost no violence and vandalism is practically unheard of.

My personal experience of European schools is that students are trusted more in all aspects of school life and respond positively. When I was part of SLT in a school, some of us advocated trying this approach - it wasn't perfect, but the vast majority of pupils appreciated not being forced to suffer because of a minority of offenders. We had a period of time when SLT focussed heavily on behaviour in communal spaces and we sanctioned, excluded and, in some instances, prosecuted those who didn't buy into our sense of community. I know this was reversed since me and some other leaders moved on and behaviour in general has deteriorated significantly.