AIBU to be angry that this is still happening!

[CosmicCanary]

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.

Cee no she does not need special accommodation. She needs to be able to use the toilet when required.

Bleeding through is not always a cause for concern and does not require medical attention. Christ GPs waiting rooms would be full of women and girls if this was the attitude taken by all.

You keep putting the responsibility on the girl or the parent when in truth it is the decision of the teacher that is causing the issue.
Stop trying to make out periods are a medical problem. They are not. They can be managed perfectly well if girls have access to toilets to allow them to manage it. The problems come when teachers deny them that access.

hmmm - in 2 minds. when inwas at school, plenty if girls had their period bi-weekly to avoid swimming lessons, and went to the loo very frequently to change their pad (read: smoke, chat, ...). Then parents came in to complain that some stuff that came up in exams had never been talked about in lessons (it had, but their precious daughter had spend that time chatting with their friends in the bathroom).
Bathrooms were crazy busy during lessons (at least 5-6 girls in there), so people who actually needed to go didn’t have a chance anyway.
We then had to bring in a not from parents (that got put in school medical records) if we were on period/upset tummy/uti to be allowed to go (unless somebody had stellar grades, or looked visibly green), and a visit to the school nurse (or gp note) if people had their period weekly. it helped a lot (this was 25 years ago and not in the uk)

cosmic reasonable adjustments can only be made when the school/ employer knows about the issue. That is the law under the EA. By using the term RA you are ssaying that the issue is akin to a disability.

And what you are saying is that girls warrant special treatment not that periods are a normal function of life. I'm not sure that is a healthy attitude.

I think people may be forgetting that young girls periods can be unpredictable and therefore unable to be predicted. Just this week my 12 year old came on a week earlier than we all expected and bled through her knickers before she realised. She was mortified. Thankfully she was in the car on the way to me so could bathe within 15 minutes.

Sorry bleeding through in 1 hr is not normal. If a girl needs to change more frequently than at every break I would consider that a medical problem.

Read NHS advice. Needing to change a pad every hour warrants medical attention.

Here we are. Taken from NHS website.

A good indication that your periods are heavy is if you:

are having to change your sanitary products every hour or two

are passing blood clots larger than 2.5cm (about the size of a 10p coin)

are bleeding through to your clothes or bedding

need to use two types of sanitary product together – for example, tampons and pads

There advice? Seek medical attention.

It seems to me that periods are a part of normal life , therefore normal life should accommodate them. We wonder why teenagers have poor mental health in this country , this constant micromanaging of them , the refusal to allow them any control over their lives, even their bodily functions is a huge part of this. Increasingly it seems schools treat pupils as the enemy, there is a presumtion of guilt . Treat everyone as if they are bad . Partly this is because schools are too big and it’s about controlling the mob

cosmicreasonable adjustments can only be made when the school/ employer knows about the issue. That is the law under the EA. By using the term RA you are ssaying that the issue is akin to a disability.

No i am not. You have decided that RA means a disability. RA in this case is recognising that although the school rule is no toilet breaks girls of a certain age need access to the bathroom during lesson so let them go.

And what you are saying is that girls warrant special treatment not that periods are a normal function of life. I'm not sure that is a healthy attitude.

No you believe it is special treatment to allow a girl on her period to use the bathroom. You want parents to alert the school not me.
I believe it is her right to be treated with dignity and not have the whole faculty know she is having her period.

@Weetabixandshreddies agree! 1 hour for a pad is a lot of blood, definitely see a gp to make sure its ok. it is NOT normal. yes, periods are normal, but not ALL periods are normal

You have decided that RA means a disability.
No. Reasonable adjustments is a term enshrined in the Equality Act for assisting people with a disability.

Weet
On a 7 day period i would bleed heavy maybe once or twice. Not a cause for concern and pretty normal. I had no way at 11 of knowing when this would happen and it happened while in school or in bed or at home while sat on the sofa.

Also my biggest fear was bleeding through my clothes so I would want to check that I wasn't. It was a few years before I relaxed and understood my periods better so that i did not feel the need to "check" all the time.

You are so adamant that girls should be denied access to the toilet you would rather clogg up Drs offices with girls who are having normal periods than say they have the right to access a toilet!!
That is some pretty messed up stance you have there.

No. Reasonable adjustments is a term enshrined in the Equality Act for assisting people with a disability.

Yes it is when discussing disability however those two words can be used in different context without them relating to a disability if none is present.

So why do you want girls stripped of their dignity Weet?

Cosmic, staff do not need to know it is her period, simply to let her go when she asks. Only her guidance teacher needs to know the medicak issue. Because as weetabix has outlined, the NHS classes the type of menstruation you're describing as a medical issue. As such it can warrant RA in schools. But we can't know that unless you tell us.

It seems to me that periods are a part of normal life , therefore normal life should accommodate them.

Yes. I don't really understand why people are discussing what constitutes a "heavy" period. Any girl - especially when they are 11 and have only just started having periods - can get caught out by their period arriving or being heavier than normal. Normal respect for human dignity requires that they are allowed to deal with the problem.

Some people on here are trying to make out that this is a "woman problem" - actually it's the school that has a problem that it needs to sort out.

**So why do you want girls stripped of their dignity Weet?

When we say people are being rude and facetious or gunning for teachers, this is what we are talking about.

Cosmic, staff do not need to know it is her period, simply to let her go when she asks

Cee then that applies to all girls then. So why the need to be told?
Girls have periods. School know this yet you want every parent to alert the school that their DD has started her period therefore may need breaks.
Is this phone call to be made only once when they have started or every month there after?

You keep making this the child and the parents problem to solve yet it is the teachers who are denying reasonable access to the toilet!!

Just going to make a suggestion that was ignored again as it seems pertinent.

If you disagree with yout DCs school's policy or rules. Join Parent Council. You will have direct access to the HT here and the potential to shape school policy. This could change the situation for all pupils, not just your own child.

When you are a young girl, periods are often irregular and unpredictable in flow. Fact. I'm not sure why girls need notes to say that they are girls and may have periods?

As an adult, my cycle is regular and I can plan around it. I sense it a few days in advance. That wasn't true of me as a young girl. I often didn't know to expect a period until I realised I was bleeding. And I had a very heavy flow throughout school.

If you think the kids are going to vandalise bathrooms or beat each other up, you need to hire someone to supervise the toilet. The solution is not to stop girls from going to the toilet.

And yes, I once bled on a chair and I have never forgotten the shame. It doesn't leave you.

When we say people are being rude and facetious or gunning for teachers, this is what we are talking about.

Oh I am sorry are teachers not allowed to be questioned?

Denying girls access to the toilet causing them to bleed through their clothes is stripping them of their dignity. Or dont you think so?
Wanting parents to alert the school that their DD has started her period is also stripping her of her right to privacy. Or do you disagree on that also?

The person in control here is the teacher. Not the child or the parent.

If you disagree with yout DCs school's policy or rules. Join Parent Council. You will have direct access to the HT here and the potential to shape school policy. This could change the situation for all pupils, not just your own child.

Or maybe school stop denying pupils access to the toilet and deal better with those children who break the rules instead of punishing all of the children?

A lot of secondary schools aren't great at building this sort of relationship with parents to be fair.

I lost count of the amount of school days I leaked through because I should have gone at break. Even though I often did. In the end during heavy days I stopped going to school.

One of my dd’s has the same thing as me. I did liaise with school that she needed to go for menstrual and uti reasons. Even provided a medical letter. We ended up changing her school because at times she was still denied, teacher would look in her book and see she had been in the previous lesson so didn’t need to go. The next school much more reasonable and let them go

To be fair to the teachers , it is often the school management that have set these rules not the teachers. It worries war that schools have become such hostile environments .

A school should be somewhere that a child feels safe and secure at the very minimum. They should feel valued and cared about. We go on about safeguarding and disclosure , but if a school doesn’t even trust a child to know when they need the bathroom , the child is hardly likely to trust the School enough to disclose something really serious.

It’s easy to blame social media for all teenagers ills , but in reality it seems to me it’s that we have lost the trust, schools have become a ‘hostile environment ‘ to coin a phrase.Many schools seem to think that it is a stripping children of their dignity is something to crow about. You simply don’t see this in countries where children have good mental health such as The Netherlands

You seem more concerned about making a stand at school rather than working with them to support your daughter.

How can you not know how bad the levels of low level disruption are in schools? Your daughter may not be doing it but I guarantee that some of her classmates are.

Schools are doing all that they can to manage it but it isn't an easy fix. You suggest staff to guard the toilets but paid for how? My school had 3 buildings, 6 toilet blocks. That's 6 members of staff just to guard toilets. 1 answer is the open plan toilets which can be monitored via CCTV but read this thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3476187-to-think-secondary-schools-should-not-have-unisex-toilets

Most parents are against them, even though they actually provide part of a solution to the issue here.

You might well want to argue that students should have free access to toilets. Yes, in an ideal world they should. But your daughter is going to experience many occasions when that can't happen. Maybe the best course of action is to find ways to manage and work around this.

Good Morning! I just read the thread and I think I see the problem. The posters arguing are imagining their own experiences and not any other possibility.

I currently teach in a school with excellent behaviour. Pupils are never denied access to the toilet. Easy!

Two jobs ago, I worked in an area of multiple deprivation. Oh my goodness- not the same situation. So many reasons I would refuse people access to toilets. Heroin use? That's just for starters. I had many occasions where SMT had to come and collect a drugged out teen from lesson. Then there was the time some year 9s made a nail bomb in the toilets.

Usually it was obvious who was going to cause trouble or not/ really need the bathroom - but I had a duty to keep these other well behaved students safe so I would encourage them to stay in my lesson rather than walk around the school.

Right now I could be smug and say I always let young people access the toilet. This hasn't always been the case though and it is completely dependant on the circumstances.