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?

Dd is 12 and has to ask for a toilet pass for the week when she has her period. Her form teacher is male and there is no privacy, she has to ask in front of the whole form including sniggering boys.
Fortunately she can do this, some girls are too embarrassed to ask.

Teachers are sacked all the time for allowing kids out of lessons ton go to toilet. And if you let them out, risking career, kids find toilets locked and security guards (BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT WORKERS) bring them back, normally with an hour detention.
11 year olds too.

I've been supply for few years and this is the case in all 11 schools I've worked in. So not isolated case study.

It seems pretty usual according to these anecdotes. I’m not looking forward to my DD going to secondary school.

I went to an all girls school and can’t recall ever being prevented from having free access to a loo.

Last school had all toilets locked apart from one set near heads office. 5 other sets of loos permanently locked.

Your poor DD, Oakmaiden. I think your response is very restrained. The procedure they are quoting doesn’t explain that access to toilets is also restricted during lunch and breaktime.

Ha! Lots of people here don’t work in schools!

1. Children will ask to get out of lessons if they’re a bit bored. You have to make it intimidating and awkward or this happens a lot
2. Yes, I’ve been in schools with big safeguarding incidents that happened during lesson times in the toilets: drug dealing, prostitution (yes, really), kids meeting for sex, bullying, theft, and obviously people pressing the fire alarm.

If a child really does need to go to the loo then obviously they should go. I would argue that’s rather rare in comparison to the other examples. There is time in the school day. Kids should plan ahead and structure their time as the teachers do.

How do you "structure" your time when it's a physical impossibility for 750 children to track down and use the one set of toilets seen fit to be unlocked and could be anywhere around the school in 15 minutes. there physically isnt the time

How can 600 girls plan ahead to use four toilets in one lunch break?!

What the hell is this? I blame Brexit. And Cameron's austerity measures, prior to Brexit.

Haven’t RTFT yet but noted the use of ‘end of day toilet use’ this would never have happened for me as we had a school bus that left 5 mins after the last bell rang, if you missed the bus you’d have to walk home

Kids should plan ahead and structure their time as the teachers do.

The problem is poor parenting.

If parents brought up their kids to respect others this policy wouldn't be needed.

" I would argue that’s rather rare in comparison to the other examples."

This is so unutterably sad. In your mind it's
rare that any of 1000 children might need to satisfy a human need to urinate during their long day? 8am to 3 or 4pm. Often with long walk either side.
Protitution and drug taking more likely than them needing a wee or a poo or to change pad?!!!
There is no workplace on earth that would think this way and this is routinely done TO CHILDREN. As I said, prisoners are treated better.

I'd just tell mine to get up and walk out saying I'm going to the loo.
They can't physically stop them.
Let's hope they all start peeing on the floor then.

@Curioushorse

Ha! Lots of people here don’t work in schools!

Lots of people don't read the full thread.

Do the teachers in schools you work in have a ratio of 1 toilet per 150 members of staff, have to exit the building to access the toilets with no opportunity to return until after the lunch break, and be escorted by a senior member of staff in order to use the facilities?

Nobody at my workplace gets bullied in the toilets, vandalisies the toilets or smokes in them.

Nobody whereI work gets long emails demanding we put an instant stop to bullying on the toilets.

My husband worked as a secondary school caretaker. The toilets were locked for various reasons, the main one being vandalism- to the point where sinks were smashed and toilets completely flooded- and also bullying. And this was an outstanding school in an affluent area!

Presumably teachers can do math though?

Do we want teachers who cant figure out that 750 girls cant all use the toilets in one lunch break?

My children hate using the toilets at school as they are unisex and in a corridor off the school thoroughfare, not private at all. I worry about them getting a UTI as they try to hold it in till they're home. It must be awful if you have a condition which means you need the toilet more often. The policy you describe is patently ridiculous. I'd get a group of parents together to lobby the school for change.

“ Teachers are sacked all the time for allowing kids out of lessons ton go to toilet”

That’s awful.

This is appalling! Why are we trying to drum in to 16 year olds that in a few months time they will be at college, sixth form or apprenticeships in the big wide world and in the next breath escorting then to toilets?

Wow that sounds crazy. They obviously have issues with some children going to the toilet but it’s not fair on students like your daughter.

That is odd. Maybe enough parents will complain and object about it?

One male toilet (I'd guess possibly 2 or 3 stalls, I have no idea), one female toilet, 6 stalls. One accessible toilet for all staff in one school, the other was 3 of each and 1 disabled. Nobody used the disabled because kids would unlock the door from the outside.

From 7.30am onwards until around 3.30pm, it's highly unlikely you'll stop for long enough to have a pee, because you're responsible for children all the time. Perhaps if there's a PPA not taken up with cover, you'll get time twice a week, but the rest of it is spent trying to ignore any urge. The staff toilets are very, very busy at the end of the day.

At least kids get the chance to leave lessons to change sanitary pads. You'd be on a disciplinary if you left a class to do the same.

But hey, sad face for being taken to the loo and expected to make it an essential visit, rather than a relax and play on the mobile for half an hour - so much better to be self harming, getting assaulted, picking up/using the drugs or passing out unnoticed for three hours at a leisurely pace because it's Human Rights to piss during lesson time or something, eh?

There will be a safeguarding issue that means this is needed.

Peer on peer abuse policy covers an ever growing area of safeguarding.

Medical needs would be given additional consideration.

There are rules about what you can use CCTV for and the reasons they can be accessed and by whom under GDPR and pixelating out pupils faces, along with a massive range of requirements.

You don't bring in or upgrade policies like this unless there is an issue.

My sons (6th form) both tell me that their toilets are regularly trashed (water and worse all over the floor, toilet paper everywhere) or they are all locked, so I suspect it's not just your daughter's school that's having issues. It must be very hard to police them properly and I'm sure the teachers don't want to regularly chaperone people. Just before Xmas my son was washing his hands having been to the loo and a female teacher came stuck her head round the door of the male toilets, when she saw him she shouted at him "What are you doing and why are you in here?" He was pretty taken aback and said "Washing my hands". She then told him off for insolence. However, he has assured me he didn't say it in an insolent way (in fact he said he was too surprised to be anything other than truthful and reasonable). What the answer is I don't know but I have written and complained to the school and asked them what they will be doing going forward, I feel it's so unacceptable I will also write to the Local Education Authority if necessary. (My son is 18 by the way).