Girls not allowed to use toilet during lessons - what to do?

Why do schools still do this . I appreciate they think some may waste time etc but they would spot that
I don't have to ask at work to go , primary they can go
We had this when i was at school the toilets were only unlocked break and lunch and I had awful heavy periods it was a nightmare for me .
Surely discretion by teachers is all that is needed

@tigerbear can I just recommend period pants for your dd. They really are amazing and I wish I'd had them when I was young.

Dd wears a pair in the morning (sometimes wears a pad too on the first heaviest day which she then removes at break) has a spare pair in a waterproof make up bag in case she wants/needs to change at lunch but rarely does. Fresh pair on when home and another pair before bed.

I had a friend at school who solved the issue by pissing over a teacher's things and the front of the class (deputy head I ). Extreme, but did lead to a quick change of policy. Don't suppose she has any particularly ballsey friends? My friend was suspended for a week iirc, but never had any come back from other students - it was such an extreme move that she was never mocked for it, only the teacher was...

Oh goddddd I hate this policy. I had it in my school and yes, they did make an exception for periods but to be granted that you had to walk up to the (often male) teacher and explain that you were on your period and needed to leave the room. Still remember the humiliation and girls laughing.

I rarely use the toilet at work between starting at 9.30 and lunch at 1pm, that's 3.5 hours

I do! I probably go twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon (at least), and I stand up and walk around a fair bit otherwise as sitting for long periods without a break is unhealthy.

I remember in primary school, a girl wasn't allowed to go to the toilet and she wet herself. It's kind of a basic human need.

But the point is , no one would stop you if you needed to go.
What about heavy periods , leaking etc ?

The evidence of it is in being part of the group Not Fine In School and thousands of experiences on there. Yes, you are only getting one side of the story but the stories are so common and similar.

Just because something is difficult, it doesn't mean it can't be done. Finland revolutionised their school system and it gets some of the best results in the world.

The school I currently work in had the issue of vaping, fights and property damage in toilets as others have mentioned. The management was going the route of 'oh well, we will lock the toilets during class' until myself and a few others raised the legal issues involved in such a poorly thought-out plan as well as the logistics of keeping a key at reception for 'emergency use by students who really need it.'

After legal consultation the school made the correct decision that locking toilets was a bad idea. You can't punish everyone because of the stupidity of a few bad apples. Instead, they installed cameras with fixed point of view over the entrance of the toilets and wash hand basins. This had to be done sensitively and with consultation with parents and students, including very strong information about where the cameras were, how they recorded, what was done with recordings and what the camera could see. The result was that after only a month of operation and consistently punishing all those caught on tape damaging property, vaping or fighting in the common space of the toilets in front of the wash basins, we have never really had such issues again.

The issue of students using the toilet as an excuse to get out of class is an issue but as a teacher you quickly learn who is taking advantage. By teachers keeping note on their electronic register of who leaves class and when, it is easy to notice patterns and to institute toilet rationing tokens for such students after a conversation with their parent/guardian. Once you have evidence that "yes, in the last 3 weeks your child has left 95% of his science classes to use the toilet. Or, yes, your child has consistently left to use the toilet 10/13 classes every day the past week. Have they a bladder issue? If not, we are instituting a token system for their use of the toilets."

Better to target those who would abuse the system and cause trouble than to punish everyone. Blanket policies may be easier, but they are inherently unfair.

@Rosehugger are you some kind of teacher troll or just genuinely clueless?

If we cut secondary schools in half and halved the class sizes a lot of the problems would disappear overnight. This would be the dream but it won't happen. Rising population, underfunding by the government, not enough schools, and where are you going to find the extra teachers? Also, it won't solve the problem with behaviour, some kids misbehaviour even if in a clas by themselves!

And teachers have zero training in dealing with neurodiversity, and loads of teachers have no natural authority. Not true, do you have any evidence of this? I have had so many training and insets on neurodiversity. I'm not an expert but to say teachers have no training is false. And loads of teachers have no natural authority? Not all, but I would say the majority of teachers do. It's just that the behaviour has got worse, social issues have got worse, class sizes bigger and teachers aren't allowed to discipline or shout at children so it's harder to be authoritative. I mean, look at how many people on this thread have told their children to just walk out of class because the teacher can't stop you.

If pupils are playing up in the toilets then deal with those individually.

A blanket toilet ban/toilets being locked is like assuming you are going to misbehave.

This has already been a problem for my sweet and genuine DD. The queues are massive at lunchtime they only have 35 min lunch and with grappling wiith where things are she is worried that she won't make form time. The other day she waited 5 hours as a result and went after school, she then walked on her own with as school friends had different lessons and thoight she'd gone. This worried me as I don't really want my 11 year old walking alone!

I remember this being a policy when my daughter was at secondary school years ago and they had 100 minute lessons. One of her friends had a bladder infection and had to produce her antibiotics to prove to the teacher that she was not lying, all the while trying not to jump up and down out of desperation in front of the laughing boys. Totally inhumane. The toilets were locked except for break time too. When we had parents’ evening, l pointed out that locking the toilets was almost certainly against the law.

I also hate that there are no mirrors in most of the toilets. So annoying all day not to be able to see if your eye is red or how bad that zit is on your chin. It feels like taking something fundamentally human away.

I’d challenge this as well. My school didn’t have this policy as such but asking was always met with sighs and eye rolls. I developed anxiety about needing to go and being unable to and ended up having panic attacks. I would spent the whole of first break just queueing for the toilet and a lot of lunchtime as well. It was miserable. I was also scared to drink a lot so basically had sips of fluid all day long!

Decades ago when I was at school, if anyone asked to go to the loo during lessons, they were allowed to, but it rarely happened

Yes, same here. That should be the case. The problem is being told you absolutely can't go to the toilet in lessons and there may be punishment for even asking.

Also children who are well-behaved and want to learn get punished because of zero tolerance policies as well. Then it just makes them hate school, because whatever you do, you get in trouble. And if you are going to get in trouble anyway, may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and do something really naughty.

Awful policy. I'd have a word but also invest in several pairs of period pants - it's expensive but they are v good. Modibodi are probs the best but loads of places now do cheaper ones and I'm sure they will reduce the anxiety you daughter has re periods.

I don't agree with schools locking toilets or having a blanket ban on going to the loo during lessons, but I do think it's something children have to learn - you go to the loo at break times and lunch time; for girls, if you are due your period you are prepared as well as you can be (if you think it will start that day, wear a towel).
If you go at every break time, surely you'll never go more than a couple of hours without a trip to the loo?

Decades ago when I was at school, if anyone asked to go to the loo during lessons, they were allowed to, but it rarely happened.

This...this annoys me so much. In this day and age that this is still a concern sucks. As a teacher myself, so long as the kid doesn't have a pattern of behavior of using the toilet as an excuse to leave class then I just wave them on.

My nieces' secondary tried this. My background is in law and I now teach myself at a different school. When I heard my niece's school had this policy (she had similar issues as your DD OP) I wrote a letter demanding they moderate the policy or I would take them to court on human rights and Convention of the rights of the child grounds. I quoted Article 3 and Article 8 of the CRC and included research reports form a number of doctors available online that showed the detriments of such a blanket toilet policy. Risk of UTi from holding on as well as the risk of weakening bladder muscles because a child goes at allotted times even when the bladder isn't strained.

Two days later I got a snippy phone call from the vice principle who thought she was going to put me in my place and talk to me like I was one of her powerless pupils. Within 5 minutes I had impressed upon her how if she didn't regulate her tone and escalate the matter to the board of governors to have the policy changed I would be doing three things: 1) Contacting the local paper to highlight the abusive behavior of staff and their inflexibility around an issue which had real health care concerns for children 2) contacting my local Councilor and MP to have them contact the board of education in order to bring this issue to their attention 3) I would be immediately contacting my very good friend who I used to work for as a solicitor and we would begin legal action.

I was not bluffing. I had been on the phone to past colleagues who were solicitors and the children's law society making enquiries about support to take a case and legal help for the practicalities. Already had drafted a nice article with a lovely mix of outraged parent voice and genuine concern for all children tone for my sister in law to submit to the local paper.

I had plans to get a group of parents together who agreed the policy was dumb and to start mass posting on twitter and the school's Facebook about it. Nothing freaks schools out worse than bad PR.

Alas, none of my lovely plans were needed. A week later a letter arrived home with my niece and an app message went out saying the policy had been changed due to pastoral care reasons, to ensure the dignity of students, mental health and physical health reasons. Now students are recommended to use the toilets between classes, at break times, at start and end of day. Students can leave class to use the toilet, but records are kept and if a pattern of a student using it as an excuse to leave a particular class is noticed, or they are using the toilet excessively a phone call home is made to put in place restrictions for that particular student whereby they have to use a 'token' system to be allowed to leave class to use the toilet.

Contact the school and politely put your case to them in writing and verbally for them to change this policy. If they don't...then I implore you to talk to other parents. Start a petition. Create a stink on their social media pages. Contact children's legal charities. Nothing changes unless you push. It might be a bit embarrassing being that parent but it's for the good of your kid.

It's going beyond the topic but schools are unruly because they are massive, the class sizes are too big and social deprivation has massively increased in the last twelve years. If we cut secondary schools in half and halved the class sizes a lot of the problems would disappear overnight. And teachers have zero training in dealing with neurodiversity, and loads of teachers have no natural authority.

Its so wrong i mean.. you dont see workplaces policing adults going to the loo so why children?

Adults don't tend to meet their colleagues to smoke/vape in the toilets, have an arranged fight, get out of 10 minutes of work every hour or cause hundreds of pounds worth of vandalism.

Our school has the same policy but we can of course use teacher discretion for genuine cases. Unfortunately we can't show the majority of pupils the respect they deserve around deciding when they need the toilet because, like many other things in school, it has been spoiled by the small minority who have no respect for anyone or anything.

It's just as bad with boys too, ds used to get very anxious about this. I told him to just leave the classroom and go and I would back him if he was punished for it. As far as I know he never did but just knowing there was an option and the world wouldn't end if he did need to leave really helped.

@Rosehugger Some schools have to have a zero tolerance behaviour policy and treat it like a prison - have you seen the behaviour in schools now? Fighting, swearing, throwing chairs, taking drugs in school, bullying, stealing, vandalising property, bringing knives in. I've seen it all. It goes beyond trying to teach them kindness and maturity. But that's a different topic to the OPs about going to the toilet in lesson!