Priest telling boys how to pee at school?

[Downamongtherednecks]

Tween ds is at a private school, not UK. Most staff are female. There were incidents of the boys’ loos being left with pee around the lavatory bowl, so a male member of staff (priest) took the boys into the loos (in groups) to tell them that this was unacceptable and to suggest that they aim better and that they should perhaps practice more (!).

This was not discussed at all with parents.
AIBU to think this was not an acceptable thing for the school to do? It seems far too private and something surely better handled by parents. Priest has form for sexism so it is possible that may be one reason I instinctively don’t like it. DH (robustly boys’ private-school educated) says this was fine, it's a boy/male teacher thing, and he can’t see a problem with it. Happy to be told I am being biased against the sexist priest. No intention of taking it up with school btw, as dc are leaving anyway. AIBU?

This is entirely unacceptable. The details are irrelevant. This kind of issue should be broached mindfully and sensitively as not to upset or embarrass the boy(s) who may be having some trouble and unintentionally making a mess in the toilets. The school should issue letters to the parents requesting that they address this issue with their own children in a way which they are happy with and if the school wished to address the students 'en masse' then it should be done in an appropriate way in an appropriate environment (e.g a school assembly) where the matter was dealt with tactfully and concisely, rather than by taking a group of children into the toilets and making it rather informal and intimate.
Did the OP discover this through the child? Bear in mind that children may distort the memory/ relation of the event.
This seems like a strange and disturbing matter. I would be extremely concerned if my child reported anything of this kind.

Annafromtheoffice, would that be an office that produces reams of government-speak crapola, by any chance? Dear God.

FFS

Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill Anna!

Ha ha ha very good Anna, very funny.

Wait....that post was a spoof wasn't it?

'strange and disturbing matter' ...being told not to pee on the floor?

My poor kids must be totally screwed.

Anna - "en masse" - was that an intentional pun? sounds as if that's exactly what they would get from a priest!

This is beyond ridiculous. Completely hysterical. There's no issue here.

FFS when I opened this I thought it was going to be something like the nuns watching the boys pee to "make sure they weren't fiddling" like they did to my dad in the fifties!

This was a teacher showing a GROUP of students a mess and telling them not to let it happen again.

And for the record, I'm also American, and "yap" is no different than any other word for chatter. Not sexist.

I would consider putting your child in public school because you really seem to have some prejudice against the staff here and I don't see how that's going to help him succeed. It's best when parents and staff can have a good working relationship.

Anna I really hope you are joking there.
If letters came home asking us to tell our boys not to pee on the floor, the parents would laugh and wonder WTF the staff had not just bollocked them in school. Waste of paper and admin time. Most parents probably would not even act on it.

there is absolutely nothing at all amiss with the situation in the OP. Nothing at all. He did not need another adult with him any more than he would if he had taken them all on the yard to moan about the amount of litter being dropped.

I'd only disagree with that Phantom in that he obviously does need the protection of another adult witness to protect him from such slurs and insinuations as we are reading here.

Safeguarding works both ways, which many daft or totally innocent people tend to forget.

Stuff like this is making many teachers have to modify their teaching, to be suspicious and back watching / covering more than ever before!

Totally ridiculous!

The thread title is misleading, in my opinion. I can't see that there is a problem with them being brought into the toilets, to be shown that there is urine being splashed on the floor. It's disgusting that anyone would have to clear up urine after boys in that age group.

Oh deary me. OP would you have preferred the teacher/priest to take them in one by one for this discussion? Used diagrams on blackboard?

What happened was TOTALLY normal and a perfectly reasonable way to address peeing on the toilet seats.

Sirzy you said
"For his sake he probably should have taken someone else with him - but only to protect himself from the accusations" and I thought you were wrong.

I apologise. After reading Anna's post I now understand what you meant.

Anna does the express involving mountains and molehills ring a bell?

Oh blast sorry x-post Sirzy

Op

Surely the bathroom is a private place if someone is actually peeing there, otherwise it's just a place. Same as a changing room.

Yabu. I have got dh to take the boys into the bathroom to show them the minging mess they left and give them some stern words about aiming better.

Wow I'm quite shocked at your responses to my post.

I'm feeling a bit stung by the remarks. :(

If my children came to me and said that a man had taken them into the toilets and told them that they should 'perhaps practice' better urination then I'm sorry, I would be horrified.

That it is just my reaction, I can see that it's not very popular.

Anna I agree with you and with victrix but we are in the minority on this thread, yes.

Anna it wasn't any man, it was school personel. These are not little boys, but nearly teens who should know better. Horrified why? BecAuse a mess was made by boys old enough to know better!

It is surprising that people would prefer the cleaning staff and potty trained boys to have to tolerate this mess than have the boys confronted with just how inconsiderate and disgusting their toilet behaviour has been.

And if the parents haven't dealt with it to date, why would the principal have any reason to think letters home would do any good?

TBF, apocalypse, this may be school only (or urinal only) behaviour that isn't reproduced at home.

Agree with the rest of your post.

There was nothing wrong with this at all. It's not any sort of safeguarding issue. The boys are old enough to be shown the consequences of their actions and to be told in no uncertain terms that things need to improve.
Deal with it an assembly? Not appropriate.

It is surprising that people would prefer the cleaning staff and potty trained boys to have to tolerate this mess

Yes indeed.

A priest in the toilet with my son?- I don't think so.

NigerDelta, I have one DS. What cured him of failure to aim was his own pair of blue rubber gloves and toilet cleaning duty for a week after I first found pee on the loo and the floor.

Combust, do you let your son pee in men's loos by himself when out and about or change clothes in a men's changing room? How are you going to keep him from sharing public loos and changing rooms with priests or clergy?

Anna and NigellasDealer, how would you like to be school cleaners responsible for cleaning a day's worth of pee off the floor of a boys' bathroom? How many times have you entered the boys' bathroom in your DSs' schools at 3 o'clock and witnessed what cleaners might face during their shift later that day?

ROFL at 'the details are irrelevant'.

Good idea math, when ds 2.5 is older I will remember that.