AIBU to think that my secondary age child at Harris Academy should not have to be “accompanied” to the toilet by a member of staff.

[Beetrootmashup]

The policy at Harris Beckenham is that any child who wishes to use the toilet/bathroom for any reason, sickness, genuine need i.e. caught out, ( it happens to the best of us adults even.) period management the runs. Must be accompanied to the loo by the assistant principle of their house. The principle must be contacted by the teacher, I don’t know how, taken out of lessons (they teach.) make their way to the class room, before your child has time to be sick/wet themselves/bleed through.
I think it’s crazy. I thought we were teaching children to be independent self sufficient members of society but we can’t trust them to trot of to the bathroom sort themselves out and get back to class in good time? Does your Harris academy have this crazy rule?
So the vote is ;
Should Harris academy Schools insist that any child who needs the toilet or bathroom at any time during a lesson must be accompanied to the bathroom by the assistant principle. Yes or No?

OP - If you are sending your DC to any school in the south east/west London area that most Harris academies are located in, there will be inevitably be gang membership and associated violence and knife crime within the student body. The problem is real and the schools don’t exist in a bubble. The difference between a good school and a bad school might well be the extent to which these problems are acknowledged and tackled.

I should say that my knowledge and experience of this is restricted to state schools. It might be that the more expensive private schools in the area (Dulwich and Whitgift spring to mind), don’t have these issues - perhaps some other MNetter can tell us.

Have you tried writing to the trust to ask the question? The school and trust both have a complaints procedure that is compliant with the independent schools standards, so should offer a robust process in terms of considering and dealing with the complaint. Harris are a very strict no nonsense trust so I imagine there was an issue which led to this - so ask about it.

And OP sounds like the type of parent that makes teachers eye roll. Teachers are trying to tackle what will be real issues. They don't introduce rules like this for shit and giggles.

This school is rated outstanding on every single level. Including behaviour. Maybe behaviour is outstanding because the school monitors it so well and leaves no room for messing about. One of my children suffered badly from bullying and I would have welcomed a strict regime and also toilets opening onto corridors, toilet blocks are a well known bullying venue. Some children never use school toilets due to fear which is far worse.

@PPopsicle no sorry just an exclamation, no offence intended.

When I was at secondary school the toilets were locked except for breaks and you had to ask for a key which meant if you were on the third floor then you had to go down 3 flights of stairs, up one to use the toilet, down one to hand the key back then up three to go back to class. (There was a lift but its use was regulated). It was mostly because people would stuff a load of toilet paper down the toilet and flush to flood the place.

It seems incredible on the face of it!

But have they had a history of bullying or other safeguarding issues? Or are so pupils using going to the loo as a ploy to getting out of lessons or truanting altogether or vandalism or leaving the toilets unclean?

Why dont you ask why the policy is in place ... please let us all know as it's very interesting!

OP have you considered speaking to the school?

8.30-8.45 arrive and use wc
School starts 8:45, bus often gets in at 8:40 or later
10.30 break use wc
12-1 lunch use wc
Lunch is 30 mins at DC school, if you have school dinners it can mean 20 mins in the queue.
2.30 break use wc
No afternoon break
3.45-4 end use wc
School ends at 3 bus leaves at 10 past depending on where you are in the building if you have to collect cooking/art/instruments there may be no time to use the toilet.

I don't have children, but as a woman who has menstruated, and like you say, the best of us have been caught out and there's a sudden unexpect period or need to change protection rapidly - I feel it's awful for a young female to have to risk leakage/blood on clothes because there's some protracted process for being escorted to the loo.

Personally I think it helps normalise a natural bodily process that the sex of the escorting teacher could be male..... Bit I also (dimly! 😂) remember being a young woman and new to this whole periods thing and it being a private and very sensitive issue - especially if there's an issue with leakage onto clothes that people would see!

I feel that this issue of girls and periods needs to be challenged as a diversity issue i.e. if girls need urgent sanitary product use is given the same time line as a boy needing a wee.... That's unfair because the urgency is most likely highly different!

feel it's awful for a young female to have to risk leakage/blood on clothes because there's some protracted process for being escorted to the loo.

I get you, but all of us on this thread went to school. We know how rare it is for a girl to actually leak on to her skirt. As a school leader you can’t make decisions based on the very slim chance that something like this is going to happen.

@Lucietigger

Would you rather a little blood, which the chances of happening are rare, or risk another pupil getting beaten up in the loo/drugs being dealt/vandalism?

I leaked at school. I did not move until the end of lesson when I could get away with putting my coat on and going straight home. No girl walks out of a full class to the toilet with leaking blood visible.

karencantobe

I get it. It’s not nice. But compared to children dealing drugs/self-harming/using weapons?

@thejollyroger I am defending this school policy.

karencantobe

Sorry!

It happened frequently to dd and she was put on medication for it. But all staff members were aware and things were put in place.

I do feel sorry for schools when every single policy gets scrutinised by some parents.

I must admit (due to the lack of children!) my understanding of what happens in school toilets nowadays is not up to date! So genuine apologies if I have caused offence! In my day (I went to a pretty rough school) the toilet risks were time wasting/smoking/drinking/severe bullying & assaults.

Every young woman's experience of periods in the early days is different. Personally I had very unpredictable and heavy bleeding - I did have a few leaks and blood stained clothes experiences, mainly because we had a similiarish experience where you had to walk to the front of the class and wait for a teacher to write a hall pass to got to the toilets, and I was a real target for bullying so I was scared to death of the toilets - so actually having a teacher/adult outside the loos would have really helped!

As an aside, I visited a very new academy school here in Swindon on Wednesday (was checking conference facilities for work event) and was a bit weirded out by their loos.... They're like in a block of 4, in a kind of cubby with no main entrance door, and are unisex (cubicles had very long doors but not a full enclosure), hand washing opposite the cubicles. Apparently the relatively open loo area was to prevent violence, smoking etc etc as technically easily policed and no hidden corners for all that undesirable behaviour. As an adult I felt a bit freaked out by the semi-public loos... But Impressed by the thought that had gone into child safety. My question is - is this a very new arrangement for loos, or now becoming a pretty normal thing? Would love to learn from parents who see these things

@thejollyroger It is fine. My point really was that no girl who has already leaked is going to go to a toilet during lesson time whatever the arrangements are.
Breaks do need to be long enough so kids can go to the toilet. And those claiming their kids do not have the chance to do this, should be raising this as the issue.
With very young primary school kids they cannot always hold on long. But unless SN or medical needs, a secondary school kid can ask to go and leave enough time for this kind of arrangement. After all when you are out for the day you can rarely go to the toilet immediately. If I am driving down the motorway I have to wait for the next services, turn off and walk to the toilet.

This is a fuss about nothing. If the school has this policy it will be for a good reason.

@Lucietigger They are common in newer built schools. And precisely because school toilets are often ground zero for bullying.

Take an example like a pupil is caught carrying a knife. School tells all the parents. Before you know it, the student’s rival is carrying a knife, and you have a death in the school, directly attributable to the disclosure. It’s a very bad idea.

You think the children don't know?

In my experience of a secondary Harris academy there is an awful lot of crowd control and behaviour control. So the children are only allowed to exit through one door, and their journey out of the school is supervised by a chain of staff all the way as they can't be trusted to leave school sensibly. Receptionists are not allowed under any circumstances to let children out of the main entrance and the other entrance is kept locked during the day until it is supervised. CCTV cameras across the whole site, all corridors, all areas. Staff communicate with each other via radio and there are frequent messages not to let XX child out as they have a detention etc. Many staff standing in the corridors at every break and lunch time as the children can't be trusted to go sensibly to the lunch hall or back to lessons. An 'on call' team on standby to respond to incidents at all times, etc. Any teacher letting their class move around the site or leave early has to let the oncall team know so that the relevant physical supervision can be provided. Etc

I went to a very rough school. It would have benefited from this approach.

Inherdefence - the boys at Whitgift are most certainly not accompanied to the toilet. Neither are they accompanied off the site when leaving to go home, or escorted to detentions etc.