to think this school policy is really odd?

[Oakmaiden]

My daughter is 16. Her school have just implemented a new toilet policy. If you wish to go to the toilet you have to go in 2 minutes, and you have to be chaperoned to and from the toilet by a senior member of staff.

I just think this is really odd. From my daughter's point of view she has food intolerances and sometimes it can take her a fair while on the loo if her tummy is unsettled (just to add, as a general rule she will avoid going to the toilet at school at all, if she can possibly manage it). But even without that, as she has said, she doesn't want to have to go to and from the toilet with an adult, or to discuss her toileting needs with anyone.

I do get that toilets in secondary schools are an ENORMOUS problem, but this just seems a totally bizarre way of managing it.

Not to forget - you now have the headteacher accompanying children to the toilet. Surely she has better things to do?

I don't know - am I wrong to think this is a very strange, and not quite right, policy?

@drspouse I can't help feeling it would be better to have a toilet attendant rather than a chaperone, if you really feel the need to monitor toilet use. And I can quite see there are good reasons some teens can't be trusted in the loos.

this is appalling

and it is as if they are trying to intimidate children out of using the loo at all.

I would be seriously unimpressed with this policy. Surely they can implement a better strategy than this. If the boys' toilets are getting trashed then a CCTV camera in the corridor showing who is going in and out might help. Obviously just trained on the corridor. Then I'd be getting someone to patrol very regularly whilst trying to change the dynamics in the school and stArt trying to prevent the behaviour in the first place.
And I actually don't think it's fairer than singling out the troublemakers and keeping an eye on them. I say that as a parent of DD who needed frequent visits and was Head Girl AND the parent of a DS who is frequently a pain in the arse for staff but he has SN. I can see it from both sides.

OP "And I can quite see there are good reasons some teens can't be trusted in the loos."

I can't really. If they're worried about knife crime or something, then they would literally need a metal detector in front of the loo.

if they're worried about drugs - well, best leave the kids to get on with it. At my school, one set of potential expulsions was brought down by a pupil pointing out that teachers were using the same dealers as pupils and how about putting that in the newspaper....

I can quite see there are good reasons some teens can't be trusted in the loos.
Oh I well remember the tales from the boys' loos at my own secondary school (and a few things that went on in the girls', too).

But it's easily manageable; even if they had a supervisor AND only one pupil could go in at a time (or some other small number).

I have emailed dd's head of house:

Hi Miss xxx,
I wondered if you could explain the new toilet policy to me - dd has got herself in a bit of a twist about it.
Thank you, and sorry to bother you!
Oak

Hopefully I will get an explanation in black and white.

I was one of the girls who had to change sanitary protection several times a day and that should be respected...and actually no child should have to talk about why they need to go.

is home schooling on the rise? This kind of thing is shocking.

I would imagine someone has been assaulted in the toilets or taking drugs and it is an interim measure to keep them safe.

I would ask if the staff toilets are closed all day as well.

Ffs poor kids

Well given there probably isnt enough time at break and lunch to time toilet visits and only let one in at a time if theres been any assaulting it will carry on as they physically have to let them go or kids wont be able to go all day. And theres no way they can follow them right in is there? They cant put themselves in the position if being alone with a student in the toilet

It sounds as though the school needs to employ toilet attendants in the same way that shopping centres do. It's surely got to be better value for money than using SLT time to supervise them.

50 years ago, one of my teenaged classmates was the victim of being scared to ask the teacher if she could go to the toilet. We were all working silently (the teacher was scary) when there was a sustained trickling noise, as she wet herself and the urine hit the floor.
I have never felt so sorry for someone. To be fair, the teacher felt awful when he excused her to go and sort herself out. He said to us that we must always tell him if we needed the toilet urgently. Conveniently forgetting that his oft repeated rule was that we must always got to the toilet in between lessons because he didn't allow people to leave the lesson. Combined with his other rule that we must never be arrive to his lessons more than three minutes after the change of lesson bell.

I'd hoped that schools were more caring places these days.

My dd3 is in Year 7
She has been to the loo once in the entire time she has been there since Sept.
There are public loos on the way home and they stop there. And I would say it's a fairly decent school.

I actually used to work at a school that had this policy about 5 years ago and left because, despite being the most qualified and most experienced member of staff, I was spending about 80% of my time doing back to back chaperoning trips to the loo and less than 20% teaching. I will admit that at the time I thought it was a completely ridiculous policy but just before I left there was a serious incident that I luckily intercepted. There was a 13 year old girl, extremely vulnerable, who had Down Syndrome and she had somehow got out of the classroom unescorted and made her own way to the loo during an after school club. I was radioed and got down to the toilets to find three 16 year old mainstream boys who were late in school at an intervention had got her into the boys toilets and were trying to take advantage of her vulnerability. Even after I intervened, she had no idea of the danger she had been in.
We’d also had incidents with trans children (don’t get me started) being bullied, attacked or accused of incidents that may or may not have happened that meant the policy was necessary.

I hated the policy but I also hated the need for it. Thankfully I’ve never worked anywhere with it, or that needed it, since.

I’d agree it’s better to have a designated toilet attendant than relying on teaching staff to chaperone toilet visits. Where the money would come from is the difficult aspect. Schools budgets are more stretched than ever and in order for there to be a toilet attendant someone else will have to either lose their job or teaching staff will be bullied out of their pay rise.

This sounds incredible.

I have to say, if this had been implemented at my school when I was growing up, it would have lasted about a day as every single pupil would have suddenly needed to the visit the toilet at least every 15 minutes. The SLT would have become very well-paid toilet attendants for the whole of the school day.

More seriously, I know it's very easy to shout 'human rights' in these kinds of situations, but I think there might be a case under Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children: “Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child’s human dignity..."

The Children's Bowel and Bladder Charity, Eric (www.eric.org.uk/school-toilets) , has a charter about this:

www.eric.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=773107e5-dc04-4736-89ce-5a1d4237b8a0

I would argue that the new school policy restricts access to toilets.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3797687-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

There was a long thread like this a little while ago.

Obviously I don't know the rationale behind the new policy, and the likelihood is I will never know, as I appreciate it is not my business. There is an element of poor behaviour in the school, although I have never had the impression there are extreme problems. As an illustration the (rather out of date) Estyn report marks the school as Excellent (equivalent to Ofsted's outstanding) in every aspect accept that relating to behaviour, which is Good.My daugher does gossip to me a lot so I know which children smoke/have sex/fight/drink as far as she does, but she has never mentioned illegal behaviour outside this and I think she would if she knew about it... And if it was a big problem she would probably know...

Something really bad must have happened or someone’s got something backwards somewhere.

The (fairly new) Head does have a reputation for being rather draconian, though...

Just can't help feeling that if something really bad had happened then all the kids would be gossiping about it.

As if teachers have the time to do this!

Also it's very unfair on the children not causing the problem. I take it CCTV isn't allowed in schools - I mean OBVIOUSLY not inside the toilets but in the corridors outside?

Put CCTV in the washrooms, by the doors and sink area so comings and goings are filmed. Then let all students have free access to the toilet. Anything less is a contravention of human rights.

That’s really unfair. Funny how when you’re an adult at uni or work you can go to the toilet as and when you please. But as a child you’re supposed to control yourself! I’ve had bladder problems since a teen and you’d be surprised at how many teachers refuse to let you go to the toilet.

CCTV is a good point - obviously it is allowed in schools, as they have it in most of the schools in the "Educating Cardiff" type series...

That sounds nuts

How many pupils? Maybe if it’s really small this wouldn’t be as impractical as it sounds.

It just seems unworkable, expensive and extreme really