Is it legal for a teacher to deny a child access to a toilet?

[NotTheMrMenAgain]

I have a friend whose DC, age 13, recently soiled themselves in class because the teacher repeatedly refused to allow them to go to the toilet (and were fairly dismissive about it, by the sound of it). It wasn't a small mishap - the rest of the class were dismissed and my friend called to collect DC.
Understandably, DC is mortified and horrified and my friend very upset and angry. There's been a verbal apology from the head of year to my friend, who said how upset the teacher involved was - but no apology from the teacher to the DC - the teacher had since ignored the child/incident.
AIBU to think this simply isn't good enough? My heart goes out to the poor kid, who knows what kind of mark it will leave and what sort of bullying/mockery it will set them up for.
Is it against a child's basic rights to deny them access to a toilet? It seems like cruelty to me. It this a common policy at secondary school? Apparently they aren't allowed to pop to the loo in between classes, only at break/lunch. When I was a teenager my periods were heavy and I wouldn't have made it til break without an accident!

offred

Its only a pen
then pencil
then ruler
rubber
sharpener

You see where this is heading?

The amount of pupils that use this as an excuse to do no work, get out of their seat and talk to their friends is immense.

Happily though, if they are put in a detention and you ring with the "its only a pen" excuse you will get no where.

If Tony Blair had said "I'm going because otherwise I'll piss myself " I doubt if the aide would have stopped him, tbh.

"I would be sacked if I left class unattended to go to the loo"

I think you need to get a better union rep. Seriously. If you genuinely need to go to the loo and the consequence is that you'll piss/ shit yourself otherwise, I'm pretty sure it would be unfair dismissal in an IT.

A friend of mine had a teacher who pissed himself in front of the class. He went off on stress leave immediately and never came back. That's how humiliating he, a grown adult, found it. (This was before he'd been diagnosed.)

Perhaps Tony was so desperate for a pee that he said "yes, whatever, let's go to war with Iraq, now can I go pleeease?"

Mistressiggi - you might be right (though the meeting would have been with the US)!

My point was, though, that there are restrictions on what we can do ( a poster didn't seem to accept this), but people should be understanding in a desperate situation.

As a teacher I am absolutely not allowed to leave a class unattended and if there was an incident and I wasn't there I would be in a lot of trouble. In 20 years of teaching and through two pregnancies I've always managed to plan ahead sufficiently to avoid the need to. I suppose if desperate the obvious thing would be to catch a passing colleague to sit in with a class.

school of confusion stationary sets, as opposed to the ones that walk off by themselves or go missing, I assume?

At no point have I said pupils shouldn't ever be punished for not being prepared for lessons or that schools should not be allowed to have issues with pupils not having necessary equipment.

My issue is with punishments which are out of proportion with the 'crime'.

Being put on report for persistently having missing necessary equipment is proportional or being put on report for messing around is proportional. Being put on report for simply not having a working pen during one lesson one time absolutely is not proportional and it means you do not have anything else in your toolbox for dealing with pupils who ARE being deliberately or persistently disruptive.

Do teachers really want to be writing out behaviour reports for most of the children in most of their lessons for spurious reasons all day? Do they not think that is a waste of their time?

And Boney part of the thing many are saying is if you punish the child whose pen has exploded or been lost or nicked by bullies or who has simply forgotten once in the exact same way as the child who is continuously disrupting the class in the exact same way that is not wise and not productive and does not encourage children to care about their education or their school.

Offred

Unless I have missed it you are now changing the narrative to suit your purpose.

If a child had a pen that exploded or was running out why would I punish them.

If I child persistently turns up without the correct equipment why should I provide it?
More importantly why should the child get away with it?

And before we get on to the "a good teacher would", do you have any idea of how much money a teacher spends on equipment that should be proved by by parents?

And FYI children with no equipment often use that as an excuse to disrupt the class.

Offred at my DD's school, the punishment for rolling up your blazer sleeves and therefore not complying with school uniform rules, is an Internal Exclusion.

The punishment for assaulting a fellow pupil, is also an internal exclusion. "But it's for longer Mum, it's 2 or 3 days instead of 1". Makes no difference, an IE is an IE.

The used their nuclear option on uniform infringements. Everyone who would previously have got told off, now has an IE on their record. 2 pupils have been the subject of serious assaults, requiring medical attention (one a skin graft) in the last three weeks.

It pays to have a proportionate system of sanctions.

LOL at Tony Blair starting the Iraq war because he just needed a pee.

I've not changed the narrative at all. What I was criticising in the first mention of this issue, and if you read my posts, was the school my best friend's daughter used to attend who have a policy of putting a child on report if they do not have their own pen/one item of stationary one time in one lesson. That was my whole point.

My son's school does not have that rule and she has now moved there.

Offred

You changed from "pen" to "exploded pen" an entirely different situation.

Your pen exploding is simply one of the minor reasons why you might not have a pen in a lesson boney...

I'm struggling to understand what you are getting at.

My point was that the school rules at that school enable the teachers to put a child on report if their pen explodes, is nicked or simply is left in another lesson and that I think is a disproportionate rule given the purpose of rules like this is to discourage messing around.

There is a difference between acknowledging that not having equipment or going to the toilet is a way that some children misbehave and setting rules that end up unfairly penalising children for just being children. That's the whole point.

Anyone living in a system which has rules which end up punishing them for existing is likely to feel disrespected and under pressure and to eventually think 'fuck this!'. That's why it is important that rules are fair.

And actually what happens with my DS is that because he is good and teachers like him they tend to go easy on him with these kinds of rules when they can. This is not really fair on all the other kids because the rules are then being applied differently because of how much a teacher likes you. It's not the right way to do things.

When they phoned about the new rule re absences for example they said that it was ok that I refused to follow it because they knew he was good and responsible as a person and so effectively the rule wasn't going to be applied to him and they were sorry they had called but they had to because it is the new rule.

What use are rules like that? It means if he makes people like him at school conceivably he could then get away with being actually naughty because they will assume he is being good.

Some of the rules remind me of the rule in Kazakhstan re beards. The thing on BBC made me laugh when the journalist said 'ah that's kind of short sighted then because if you think all people with beards are terrorists and you make them shave them off you can't see where the terrorists are anymore'

The thing is this. As a parent, when you send your child to a school, you agree to support the school in their policies and rules.

You should therefore read their prospectus, policies etc and the home/school agreement as your child enters the school. You may well have to sign a piece of paper to say you agree with said rules etc.

If you don't like the rules, move your child. And read the policies more carefully next time around.

The schools can change their rules at any time though. This is what has happened at DS's school actually. Ofsted inspected and they were put in special measures and responsibility for running the school was handed over to other people who changed many of the rules that were in place when he started in September.

It is a bit prejudiced to assume that people are being surprised by rules simply because they were lazy or disinterested and didn't bother reading the prospectus/behaviour contract/investigating the school.

But equally as an adult I don't really do the whole changing schools because I don't agree with the rules thing. If the school has rules that I think are unfair or illegal I will speak to the school about it whilst expecting the DC to do their best to comply with them.

If I had a pound for the amount of times I'd heard the "I don't have a pen cause it exploded last lesson Miss" I'd be able to afford to buy a lot more pens. Do pens actually explode?? I've never experienced such a phenomenon. How about the idea of actually owning more than one pen? Novel, I know, but in my day we used to take a pencil case to school containing lots of pens etc... Oh and we weren't allowed to go to the loo during lessons either.

Me neither.

And it was a girls school. Some teachers would let you out....most wouldn't.

Wow betide you hadn't got your equipment either. You quickly learned to borrow from a friend etc.

It's amazing how many kids have no book, pen or pencil etc but have got a fully charged phone, and in the girl's case, clearly enough time to slap half of boots on their faces too.