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!

Year 5. She has had a new teacher each year including a year of being taught by the previous SENCO before she retired.

I know it is very strange yes and that's part of why it got so bad because I trusted the school all of the times they reassured me that she was fine while she was in school so although I knew she was very unhappy there I didn't realise the seriousness of her unhappiness.

And none of them have expressed any concerns about her behaviour in school? Was the incident of running out the last time she went to school? If not, what triggered the final decision to not return?

Have skipped part of the thread because, frankly, life is too short to wade through yet more teacher bashing. But just wanted to say that I absolutely do not want any teacher to be accountable to either of my children. They are children. They are there to learn and to follow instructions. They are not at school to argue, negotiate or discuss. Both my DH and I have made it clear from the beginning that we are the adults and therefore we are in charge and when they went to school their teachers are in charge. When they are adults they get to call the shots, until then, they do as they are told.

Yes, not only did they reassure me that she didn't have issues in school they dismissed my worries from reception to y2. Then she was much better in y3 so I only mentioned prior things to the teacher at parents evening and felt reassured that she finally seemed to be settling but it turns out that that year she had not had a single friend and had been staying in at breaks etc and then the anxiety got much much worse and she started refusing school at the end of y4 I reported the first refusal to EWO (and it turns out they have not had a single contact from school even now) and having vague anxiety related symptoms which I discussed with the teacher but she just said 'what's she anxious about school for?' So I explained it is usually problems with friends and other children etc dd started telling me that when she got stress tummy and told the teacher she would tell her to stop complaining and just get on with it, it suddenly got massively worse and she ended up in hospital and CAMHS recommended the reduced timetable based on their assessment which indicated school anxiety and the school just said 'no, she just has to come to school' and when I said CAMHS also felt she needed to be assessed for ASD they said 'we are not prepared to refer for assessments because we don't see any evidence of that at school' whenever I tried to speak to the SENCO they would not let me because she wasn't failing academically and so I resorted to catching her on the door the last day of term and asking her please to get involved even if it was just to confirm what the teacher's had said. At that point I applied for DLA to be able to ask for reasonable adjustments and it was awarded based on hospital and CAMHS assessments (higher rate care and lower mobility) and then she basically never returned to school for y5 although did days here and there like for the speech and language assessment so we tried a managed transfer to a different school but she found the change too much even though she wanted to go and then the school finally allowed me to speak to the SENCO and started referring for support which in most cases saw her as an urgent case when they realised she was struggling so much.

Since January to be fair to the school I have been meeting with the head and the SENCO and we have been trying different things to try and support her back to school but I also said that I felt we needed input from the ed psych with that for it to be successful because we don't have any idea yet about her needs. They did agree with that, we still tried various things which didn't work and then the ed psych saw her in early Feb having got the referral on 31st of January and agreed with the wellbeing woman in saying that it was not possible for her to attend school at the moment and that she needed a lot of support before that could happen but that it is the end goal - which I agree with. Ed psych has suggested that she needs support first to be able to engage with therapy, then she needs some home tutoring to get her used to learning again (I have found I cannot teach her because her rigid thinking dictates that I am mum not teacher) and then she needs a structured return to an appropriate school environment.

So yes, I am very upset about how they have handled dd but I still have two younger siblings who don't have any SEN who are still in the school in y2 and they are really happy there and doing well and I have not brought any of my feelings into how I feel about what happened with DD and have emphasised that older DS loved the school and still speaks fondly about it and that the twins continue to be very happy to them because I don't want the twins to be affected by any of this either from my feelings or the school's.

*into things with them re dd I mean

(And as a side note last year I was also diagnosed with MS which can make me fatigued and confused and currently my ex is being investigated re abuse so yeah, capacity and inclination for complaining to governors is lacking).

And yes I'm invested in this thread because really school not taking any action over years of consistent problems and dismissing my concerns (which turned out to likely be ASD) has caused me to learn the hard way that sometimes some teachers and schools do things wrong.

Is your ex dd's dad?

No, he's not and her anxiety is compounded because of worrying about me because police have been to the house a couple of times to take statements when she was here in the last month but the problems have consistently existed for a long time before that. On the referrals for everything I have made sure the da has been included but the social worker IMO didn't take it very seriously (said he thought we should try to work it out) though ex was arrested yesterday for three serious offences (not ever when children were around though they have seen me upset on occasion).

I'm always upfront about everything with everyone. Social worker felt we should work it out because I 'needed support'!!!

Sad to say but this is the norm. Even when I was at school in the 80's, teachers were up against a lot of kids wanting out of the class for a skive so made this ungodly rule. A letter from parents or doctor still seems the only way around it. I think you have to put yourself in the teachers position, if everybody demanded to go to the loo, the class would be half empty and lessons halted. I feel for the kid concerned , I really do, I had an incident in primary school which was similar and kids can be so cruel. It is a shame that teachers seem to be too.

I think that there is no doubt that all of that will have impacted on her. I suspect that she probably is scared to be far from you in order to look after you and this is probably why her current state is so bad. Even if she hasn't seen it it will be there, all around her. Her behaviours probably have been more pronounced at home because of that.

I'm really trying to word this as gently as possible here but your story has unfolded very slowly through this thread, which fundamentally was about children being let out of class to use the loo, and it seems to me now that your latest posts suggest that the school are really in a position of needing to handle the fall out of a pretty complex home situation. You said yourself that at the CIN meeting their view was that the issues stemmed from home.

I think, from what you have said on here (and as a mum rather than anything else- I'm certainly no psychiatrist) that your daughter needs a huge amount of reassurance and to know that you are ok and safe. I think that will take a long time but I wish you well with it.

Why does the social worker feel you need support? Is that because of the ms?

The reason the social worker called the CIN meeting was because of the conflicted between what the CAMHS report said and what the school said I.e. That CAMHS were saying she had severe school anxiety and reported what she had said about her worries about school and the running away and social relationships and the school were saying there were no problems at school and she had been referred to CAMHS because of incidents at home. He wanted to use it as a framework to actually get everyone to take some action.

I'm prepared to be held accountable and take responsibility for the effect of the da because I know that even though all the dcs were not actually involved they were living with me and will be affected by how I was feeling. They have also been affected by my MS too.

However since the truth re school has come out the concerns about DD at both home and school have existed since way before I even met ex. it's not as simple as the school only noticed she was struggling recently, they have brought up concerns about her that cross her entire time at the school.

Her crisis point coincided with me moving house and most people think that is what triggered her decline and agree that all the other stuff is contributing but more the MS than my ex is what has made her anxious and clingy though she has vastly improved since not going to school too.

Yes because I was asking him for support and basically the LA doesn't have funding for respite any more and they expect you to rely on family and friends.

That was when dd was really bad and she would not leave my house at all for months and I was ill.

"though she has vastly improved since not going to school too". Because you're there with her and she's with you. She knows you're safe.

She sounds like in her 10 or so years she's had a lot of turbulence which, if ASD is there, will have been very difficult for her. I think laying all of that at the door of the school, which is what I feel you did on this thread up until your post re your abusive ex, is a bit unfair really.

I'm not laying all of it at the door of the school just the bits that the school are actually responsible for - like not acting way before she had already been out of school for months, like not working with me to help her much earlier, like two serious safeguarding incidents when she got out of school during school hours, like that they haven't really properly dealt with anything or made any of the referrals until way too late and like that she has been punished for having sensory needs and social and communication issues for her whole school life, like that they refused to even take the advice of CAMHS.

The main issue with it all is that no matter what is behind her issues all of the ways she could have got any support have to go through school and because they refused to do anything at all until too late she no actually can't access many things she needs because of that.

I appreciate how just this reasonably small description looks from the outside but there are also many things I haven't mentioned re most people involved and the people who are fully informed do not think that this is a problem with home, some of them I think should actually have taken/take more notice re the DA because I agree it has had an impact and is part of her issues but she has always been this way re school and it has only resulted in her actually not going because she is now physically big enough to not be forced to go.

If this was a thread about my dd and her complex needs or if the school in DD's case had done nothing wrong then it would be fair enough to say I hadn't been upfront or I was blaming the school for everything etc.

However as you said upthread the school have basically implied that they acknowledge they have done some things wrong...

I mean is there really any excuse for the school to have never contacted the EWO? Even though she has been actually out of school for virtually the whole year?

I think if I were you I'd back track through when it got worse, when her behaviour has been at its best and try and identify how that sits with what has been happening in her and your life. What relationships you were in, when the abuse was an issue etc.
I don't agree that identifying why your daughter is ill is not an issue as I think when you start to understand that you might understand what the solution could be. If you blame the school for the issues she has then you will seek the solution there when actually it might not be there at all.

I totally accept that I only know what you have said on MN and that others who have worked with you feel that her home situation has not impacted but to be honest, I find it difficult to see how that could be the case given the circumstances. I think anyone would be affected by those things, let alone a child with ASD tendencies.
Anyway, this thread has been so far derailed from what it was to start with as to be a bit ridiculous so I shall duck out. I wish you all the best in supporting your daughter and hope that she can get back into school soon.

"However as you said upthread the school have basically implied that they acknowledge they have done some things wrong...". They have acknowledged that they opened a door they shouldn't have opened and have put procedures in place to remedy this. They haven't accepted responsibility for your daughter's mental health issues.