Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be angry that this is still happening!

646 replies

CosmicCanary · 14/01/2019 23:41

Bristol News

I know this is not the only girl this has happened to. I know there will be many many girls who have suffered the same humiliation in school just today.

I was one of them many years ago.
So many times i bled through my pad in lesson but I knew asking to go to the toilet in would be met with a NO so i didn't bother. It was a humiliation in its self for the whole class to know you needed the loo. Such a public audience for an other wise private act.

I have already told my DDs should they need the toilet they must ask but if refused walk out of lesson if they absolutely cannot wait and I will deal with school.
They will not suffer the humiliation and shame of leaving blood on a school chair as I did.

OP posts:
JassyRadlett · 16/01/2019 23:41

Equally, if it’s as desperate a situation as this news story, the teacher would likely sense they are in distress and use their professional training and discretion.

Except this thread is littered with examples of when that didn’t happen, and why it didn’t happen.

MontyPants · 17/01/2019 00:39

When my brother was 11 or 12, he was refused permission to go to the toilet in class. He genuinely needed it, and ended up wetting himself. My dad got a call from the school to bring new clothes. My dad was absolutely fuming with the teachers. He took my brother home early that day. I appreciate there are some children who take the piss (pardon the pun), but surely a common-sense decision can be made when a child is looking distressed and insisting they need to go? My brother wasn’t a trouble maker, he didn’t have form for asking to leave during class, and in fact it was during one of his favourite subjects.

snitzelvoncrumb · 17/01/2019 00:54

Yes Monty its not just about the girls with periods (equally important) but boys too. I have told my boys and girl to just walk out if it's an emergency. I will deal with the fall out. I wouldn't send them to a school that locks the toilets.

llizzie · 17/01/2019 02:13

The best thing to do is think about these teachers and picture them as elderly wearing inco pads and seeing how long they will last somewhere where access to a loo needs some help which is not there. They will - hopefully - have pangs of guilt at the way they treated children entrusted to them to safeguard their welfare as well as teach them. Come to think of it, what sort of lesson are vulnerable young girls learning from treatment like this? If a teacher is constantly getting requests for the toilet they should ask THEMSELVES why. Perhaps they are boring.

Isthisit01 · 17/01/2019 03:06

Yes I refuse the use of a toilet pass for a normal period. Why should school need to know about my DDs menstrual cycle? Would every parent of a girl need to contact the school each month to alert them?

If a child has normal periods this wouldn't be a problem because you could (with proper sanitary and parental guidance) manage your period without going to the toilet during lessons.

FlyingMonkeys · 17/01/2019 03:56

I never had periods problematic periods when I was young. As a middle aged peri menopausal woman I certainly do. I'm fucking sure if anyone told me I had to put my hand up to go to the toilet or wait until they deemed it suitable, I'd give them short thrift. I'm pretty sure the teachers proclaiming the kids can manage it better wouldn't sit there themselves in blood soaked knickers and chairs rather than excuse themselves for 3 mins if very necessary.

FlyingMonkeys · 17/01/2019 04:04

And as a working aged adult I've never sat in a meeting where someone would be disciplined for excusing themselves to the toilet vs pissing on the floor. The reverse would probably involve a discipline, but definitely not the former. It's surprising that over 18 and a school leaver you're considered 'appropriate' to know when you actually need the toilet or don't, but under 18 you're clearly fucking about and wanting to skip out of a lesson.

GrammarTeacher · 17/01/2019 06:01

Can people please stop posting as if this is happening in all schools. It isn't. Our toilets are not locked during lessons. It would be a waste of time for the poor site team to do that for the one hour between break and lunchtime if nothing else!
The majority of students in the majority of schools are perfectly able to be trusted to use the toilets if they need them in lessons. Individuals can be followed up through the pastoral system if patterns are noticed.
But then I work in a privileged area in a privileged school which means that (particularly in KS3) students often have to leave a lesson for an instrument lesson or to go to represent the school in something.
Dawdling between lessons is more frustrating than one student going to the toilet.
Sorry for jumbled structure; I haven't had my first tea of the day yet.

RoseNarene · 17/01/2019 06:31

Toilet passes aren't issued every month. You'd only have to call once to get one and she'd have it for the whole year. Toilet passes are there for this very reason but you still think the answer is to simply tell your child to walk out of lessons?

Crazy.

"Why should the whole school know every time my daughter is on her period"

Well they would know if she made the scene of walking out every time, wouldn't they?

GrammarTeacher · 17/01/2019 06:41

But why are toilet passes necessary when the majority of children don't take the proverbial? They should all be allowed to go to the toilet if they need to.

MoreCheeseDear · 17/01/2019 06:51

No bile no hatred just refusal to accept such lazy excuses and question teachers motives and I am met with the above comment.

The fact you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. It isn't lazy to enforce school rules as instructed by the headteacher. Can't see any way in which you think this is lazy. Get a grip, you're frothing. And positively oozing bile.

I think that comment says quite a lot about the person who posted it

Oh, the irony - but you are too blind to see any fault in yourself.

I started a period in school. I was embarrassed. I got over it.

Let it go, OP, you are looking more and more irrational.

JassyRadlett · 17/01/2019 08:07

If a child has normal periods this wouldn't be a problem because you could (with proper sanitary and parental guidance) manage your period without going to the toilet during lessons.

Oh, do ‘normal periods’ only start in break times? How amazing the human body is.

Tunnocks34 · 17/01/2019 08:13

I never stop pupils going to the toilet in lesson.

If I think a pupil is taking the piss, which to be fair, does happen, then they are told they need to make the time up at break or dinner. Pupils who genuinely need the toilet will just say ok. Pupils who are taking the piss, will say ‘it’s ok, I’ll hold it’

But you know what, I don’t have kids asking every lesson. I don’t even have a pupil ask every day. All my pupils know that I would never prevent them using the bathroom and it hasn’t encouraged masses of pupils to take this piss.

Tunnocks34 · 17/01/2019 08:19

And actually I have ‘normal’ periods. And I have had to leave a lesson I was teaching under the supervision of my TA for 5 minutes because mid lesson I felt blood trickling down my thigh.

As an adult I get caught out - why are children any different? We are raising children to adults, trust is a big part of it.

Mistigri · 17/01/2019 08:25

I like to think that tunnocks speaks for the silent majority of sane, humane, competent teaching professionals.

Dillydallyer · 17/01/2019 08:36

I’m absolutely appalled at the attitude of female teachers on here, defending this decision. I have endometriosis and polycystic ovaries. I can go months without a period but when I come on I get no warning, I just flood. So to say a ‘heavy period’ can wait a while you have NO idea. I can also bleed for months at a time. So girls saying they are bleeding every week can happen. As for saying they have enough time between classes, how long do they have? Enough to wait in a queue of every other girl in the class, then clean themselves up, change their sanitary protection and get to class? Or when they’re late to class will they be marked down and asked why they were late in front of the class?!

I don’t care if it causes indiscipline in a class. If my daughter needs to go to the toilet due to a period she will be going. I do understand asking them to wait until they’ve finished their work if they just need a wee, although surely to use a toilet is a basic human right? But to me when a young girl is on her period you allow her the time she needs to sort herself out. Other teenagers can be vile. If they see a girl has leaked they could bully them (this actually happened to me at college). Do you really want that on your conscience?

Isthisit01 · 17/01/2019 08:37

Oh, do ‘normal periods’ only start in break times? How amazing the human body is.

A normal period doesn't gush out onto your seat a d soak you withing seconds of coming on.

SnuggyBuggy · 17/01/2019 08:39

Maybe not seconds but easily within 30 mins or less

JassyRadlett · 17/01/2019 08:47

A normal period doesn't gush out onto your seat a d soak you withing seconds of coming on.

No, but that’s not the scenario, is it? Or we’d not be having this conversation, because it would be too late by the time the girl had asked to go to the loo.

At that age (and sometimes now) my periods often started heavily. Within an hour it’d be through my clothes. They were entirely within the range of ‘normal’.

Original poster
CosmicCanary · 17/01/2019 08:47

Let it go, OP, you are looking more and more irrational.

Oh dear talking about girls having their dignity and privacy removed makes me irrational...hmm now where have I heard that said before anytime women do not silently accept rules that have a negative impact on them 🤔

There is nothing vile about my posts. Other than i refuse to accept the rule that all children should be punished because a few misbehave.

If a child has normal periods this wouldn't be a problem because you could (with proper sanitary and parental guidance) manage your period without going to the toilet during lessons.

Whats a normal period?

OP posts:
MoreCheeseDear · 17/01/2019 08:48

The head teacher makes the rules so any anger should be addressed to the head not the teacher caught in the middle. Some schools have had to lock the toilets during lesson times due to vandalism and bullying. Some young people are practically feral but it's impossible to expel them.

Of course young women should be able to go to the toilet when they need to at period time but it's head teachers who need to be convinced. And a workable method introduced that doesn't put people at risk.

To call teachers who are enforcing the rule (daft though it is) lazy is just stupid.

Original poster
CosmicCanary · 17/01/2019 09:06

Are those teachers not allowed to speak to the head?
Can they not express a concern that a blanket ban can cause unecessary distress?
At the end of the day it is the teacher that is in control and is the one who says yes or no at the point when the child makes the request.

Whenever i had to discuss a problem with school it has always been with the HOY not a teacher.

OP posts:
Anewoneforme · 17/01/2019 09:50

It is the headteacher and management team who make the rules. Who are mostly male.
And with performance related pay, who is going to be difficult with management?
I have always let students go if I think they genuinely need to, but it is a really hard call to make sometimes, you can look partisan, be accused of being unfair, having favourites, and on the odd occasion you make the wrong call.
Like the girl who attempted suiciy and self harmed in the loos, or the boys who ripped sinks off the walls costing thousands and thousands of pounds of damage, or the students who absconded, or met to have sex or take drugs.
It's not always that easy. Honestly.

Anewoneforme · 17/01/2019 09:53

Oh and in the roughest school I worked in students would just walk out like their parents had told them to, and purposefully disrupt every lesson on the way by banging the doors open, smashing up lockers or just being loud and waving through the windows. It doesn't just affect the one class!

theworldistoosmall · 17/01/2019 10:00

Those that work in the school should challenge this decision then. Explain the issues a blanket rule causes.
We did this in a school I worked in. We all got together and supported retaining the dignity of students. Every single member of staff was able to give examples of students who had been embarrassed and of course, the HT had received numerous complaints from parents/carers and health professionals regarding batshit policies. Plus the hypocrisy of the situation that we were allowed to go. If pushed we would have gone to the governors.

Someone said Ofsted was the cause of this situation. Yet when parents were sent out their questionnaires they were happy once the policy had changed. Students in their polls also gave positive feedback. Which in turn Ofsted commented positively about with regards to wellbeing. But I suppose that's one of the things that make schools outstanding. Listening to and supporting students and staff.

Sometimes we need to go when we need to go. Our bodily functions don't always work on a limited timetable. Great that some always go at a certain time. But at the end of the day, we are all different and a bit of empathy for others shouldn't be too much to ask for.