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?

Government meetings*

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.

They are accompanied off site. As are the boys at Trinity - staff wait at the bus stops with them and supervise/ensure they get on in an orderly fashion - and will make them get off again if they are rude to anybody such as the driver or passengers. Staff are on bus stop duty until at least 4pm, if not later, to allow for detentions, clubs and generally hanging around or waiting for a particular person to come out.

The escorting students to and from the toilet reduces the times where they hide in there on their phones, meet up for vaping or smoking, dealing, collecting weapons hid earlier in the day, finding other places on site to hide, meet boyfriends, have a laugh and a joke, vandalise said toilets, self harm or become genuinely and seriously ill and nobody knows where they are. And the prospect of being escorted at every lesson means that the usual ones who do anything rather than sit down and get on with their work think twice about it by the third lesson when they've already had two trips.

I've worked at a place that introduced it - apart from drugs, knives and cigarettes/vapes, alcohol and stolen goods were found at different times hidden in cisterns, behind cistern boxes and in the ceiling. As were items for serious SH and phones - the latter could be extra ones related to gang or CSE grooming.

It's also been possible to pick up on girls with period issues, as having to escort the same girl five times in the day means that you can have a nice chat about how it isn't something she has to put up with, she can see the GP about it, that a girl going there because she needs to throw up could be pregnant or bulimic or severely anxious, etc, etc. Or the kid who was a bit twitchy when going in is quite possibly under the influence when emerging, which gives grounds for not just seeking medical attention for them, but searches - as too many will have parents who will say 'oh, they were tired and you were picking on them' when they have pupils the size of the moon or smaller than a pin prick/are bouncing off the walls upon emerging.

It's a blunt tool, but an effective one for safeguarding.

And those with known medical problems will have Toilet Passes. That means that whilst they are still escorted, you know that they aren't trying to do any of the above - not that having a medical condition and doing something nefarious are mutually exclusive, by the way.

thehorse

As I said, DD2 had endometriosis unbeknownst to us at that time - she was 22 before it was diagnosed, although she had several ultrasounds of her bladder and ovaries. That doesn’t alter the fact, it would have been ludicrous to insist a quiet, well behaved girl like her, needed accompanying to the toilet by an adult in case she was messing about! It caused her enough angst as it was, because her life revolved around toilets. I cannot imagine how she would have felt if a big deal was made of it!

Have you been watching Educating Essex again
Actually after educating essex was on the school moved to a brand new school where the toilets were in an open plan affair that was unisex.

MontStMichel as I said, a child's medical needs are a separate issue. Children who need quick or regular access to the toilet will have provision made for them.

Undiagnosed endometriosis is horrendous, regardless of the policies of any school.

As other posters have said, yes this policy is complete overkill and unnecessary for the vast majority of pupils. It's likely been brought in due to at least one very serious incident which, depending on what it was, could have caused harm to the quiet, well behaved children too.

Blanket policies never suit everyone, which is why they tend to be created when there's a risky situation that needs to be managed quickly.

Lucietigger 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 Visiting a relative in hospital today, the loos for visitors are off the corridor although sinks are in the cubicle. Not sure what is weird about them, very close to using the downstairs loo at home just a bit more clinical.

@ChristmasCakeLover Yes people are told where the toilets are, but in meetings I go to people do not just wander out to the toilets during the meeting. I can see this happening if you work in the kind of place that have long winded unnecessary meetings. But where I work meetings are about cases that everyone has to know what is happening. If someone went to the toilet, we would have to pause the meeting until they came back.

Our meetings are similar in content and long but we have very accurate, detailed minutes for everyone to refer to.

MontStMichel but maybe your well behaved daughter would need accompanying to protect her.

It's infuriating for me to read teachers saying things like "my school would never be so draconian, it's unnecessary" - ALL SCHOOLS ARE VERY DIFFERENT AND EACH YEAR GROUP IS DIFFERENT and if you work in a school aren't aware of this then you are a Muppet.

I'm sure the policy isn't there to belittle or frustrate the pupils but to keep them safe and to enable them to receive the best education possible. There will have been a chain of events that led to this decision.

The children parents describe as 'quiet and well behaved ' are not always the ones school staff would describe similarly.

@ChristmasCakeLover We would have to stop the meeting because it is not just about information, if it was we would just send out a long email. It is about what everyone is doing and what we will all do in the future.
I do understand not all meetings are like that, but people would disrupt things if they go to the toilet. So it just never happens.

The ones who are quiet and well behaved are perfect targets for grooming. Keeping an eye on them helps to protect them at the outset, as much as keeping an eye on the less well behaved who might already have been dragged into that world.

I do not thing that is true Mitzi. I was quiet and well behaved and not at all vulnerable to grooming. It is those with very low self esteem who get little attention at home who are vulnerable. So I would never have dated someone quite a bit older than me as a teenager.

The ones who aree quiet and well behave ahpuld not be exposednto the criminal. Neither should the criminal be allowed to disrupt their education.

It is shocking that professional heads and tea hers have allowed sociefy to come to this pass. It is not acceptable. It is not good enough.

And here's me thinking at the thread title "there's an academy on Harris? I thought they all went to the Sir E Scott secondary or the Nicholson Institute in Stornoway on Lewis!" 🤣

Oh i agree Karen but pp i quoted insisted that 'in the real world' people did not leave meetings to use the bathroom. Or lectures etc

OhTheRoses

It is shocking that professional heads and tea hers have allowed sociefy to come to this pass. It is not acceptable. It is not good enough.

Teachers and headteachers are hardly responsible for society's ills - no more than parents are.

@karencantobe. You're a fool, then.

Just because you didn't cross paths with a predator, that doesn't mean that the others, who are in close proximity to others who already have - which is the case in Beckenham and the surrounding areas - won't.

Grooming is not just happening to those with low self esteem, it's those who have a dead parent, those who become ill or a parent becomes ill, those who think they're amazing, those who think they'd never fall for it. Grooming happens with the other girl in the class who you hang out with, who has a new boyfriend who is really 'nice', whose brother has friends, whose sister's boyfriend seems lovely, who capitalises on the normal teenage feelings of 'That's not fair', the kid who makes you laugh or stops another kid from picking on them at the tramstop.

Grooming isn't all big, scary men impressing conventionally vulnerable children. It's more sophisticated than that.

'Good' kids are just as much of a target. And no amount of 'well, a good kid wouldn't do that' can protect them.

It scares me how naive people are about grooming and also the prevalence of sexual harassment and assaults in schools, particularly secondary.

More than one third of girls report being sexually harassed while in school www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/19/third-girls-say-have-sexually-harassed-school-charity-survey/

Toilets in schools are notorious for all the reasons pps have said.

Sure, this policy is heavy-handed, but pound to a penny it was introduced to reduce or eliminate serious incidents like this.

OP, why not ask the school why they've brought it in now? I'm sure 'because we wanted to create hassle and disruption for teachers and humiliate children as much as possible' won't be it.

I do understand about grooming and what makes girls vulnerable.

Then why did you make a nonsensical statement that put it all down to girls lacking attention and getting it from older people they're dating?

It happens - can happen - to any girl or boy - from people both older and younger, outside a romantic attachment and whether or not they get loads of attention at home or not.

“Teachers and headteachers are hardly responsible for society's ills - no more than parents are.”

If it’s not parents, it’s not teachers, it’s not social workers, police, aunts uncles, any other responsible adults who is it? It would seem to me that when we have children behaving in ways that are dangerous mentioned above many many times the buck stops with adults. Morally we have to stand up and say what is going on when we have got to a place where schools are more like prisons. I’m sorry but this is not an acceptable state for schools and therefore children to be in. it’s not down to them to fix, it’s the adults, the parents, the teachers the police, the doctors the social workers. I agree wi the pp above common sense has gone out of the window for this to happen.

From what you've said, the adults in this situation have acknowledged that the buck stops with them and are doing what they can to keep children safe.

Yes, it's heavy-handed but this policy wouldn't have been brought in for the shit and giggles.

Have you spoken to the school to ask the reason for this policy at all?

I agree it's down to the adults but the post I was responding to was this from OhTheRoses:

It is shocking that professional heads and tea hers have allowed sociefy to come to this pass. It is not acceptable. It is not good enough.

Which firmly blames the teaching staff - which is unfair. Teachers don't "allow society to come to this pass", society does and we are all part of that.

The staff at your child's school are evidently reacting to something and trying to resolve it - maybe you consider their methods to be draconion, but they must feel that it has to be done. Believe me, no teacher WANTS to accompany children to the toilet.