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?

I'm sure SLT don't want to spend 80% of their time escorting pupils to and from the toilet.

It will be an interim measure in response to a specific incident.

You see parents on mn every day asking why their child's school isn't doing anything to stop crime, prevent drug and alcohol misuse, stop the fire alarm being set off twice a day and disrupting lessons, stop bullying during unstructured times and so on.

I guess this is a case of a school putting something in place, probably temporarily, probably as part of a suite of measures.

They're not refusing toilet access, they're making sure that everyone - not just known troublemakers-causers because then their parents would complain about them being singled out - is accompanied. No human rights are being infringed.

And I doubt very much that a well behaved pupil will be in any trouble whatsoever for being in there for, say, four minutes instead of two. 'Two minutes' is just shorthand for 'be very quick.'

In recent weeks at my school, from the toilets - someone selling water bottles filled with vodka, fire alarm set off umpteen times, student assaulted, students from various classes leaving at a prearranged time to meet in the toilets.

I don't see how the solution, if everyone is seemingly v happy with SLT policing lavatories, is not to just have a rota of one member of staff with a chair/desk right by the loos, making sure that there's no funny business going on. No locked doors or timing or escorts, just the assistant head doing paperwork by the sinks and teachers using their judgement/discretion to allow kids to go to the bathroom. Much more efficient, surely?

If I'd known i was going to have to go through the rigmarole OP describes to change my tampon and deal with period bowel nonsense, i would have bunked school the 5 days a month i was menstruating.

It'll work if there's only one set of toilets but doubt they've got the staff or space to permanently position a member of staff outside all of them.

OP said there are two blocks, only one of which is available during lesson time. So this should work fine.

They're not refusing toilet access, they're making sure that everyone - not just known troublemakers-causers because then their parents would complain about them being singled out - is accompanied. No human rights are being infringed.

So you wouldn't have any issue at all if your workplace implemented a policy whereby you have to ask when you need to go to the toilet - maybe having to justify why you need to go (explain to your male boss that you've just come on) and when you last went - and then sending a chaperone to accompany you, once one is available, with a stopwatch to make sure you aren't taking longer than they think you should be?

These aren't little ones needing assistance and supervision - they're teenagers. Access to toilets is a human right which they're (just about) not being denied, but so is human dignity, which they most definitely are being denied.

"So you wouldn't have any issue at all if your workplace implemented a policy whereby you have to ask when you need to go to the toilet - maybe having to justify why you need to go (explain to your male boss that you've just come on) and when you last went - and then sending a chaperone to accompany you, once one is available, with a stopwatch to make sure you aren't taking longer than they think you should be?"

Some workplaces already clock you on and off when you go to the loo. But aside from that, you've made up a load of stuff. They ask to go to the loo, someone walks them there and back. They don't have to explain what they're doing on the loo, and nobody has a stopwatch.

And for me, the most important fact is that they won't have done it for fun. There will be a reason even if parents don't know what it is. If it was my child, I'd suggest a bit of resilience but I realise that some parents like to teach their little darlings that their rights are being infringed if they're asked to do something that they don't want to do.

"OP said there are two blocks, only one of which is available during lesson time. So this should work fine."

With space for a workstation outside?

I just really think that asking slt to accompany teens to the toilet is a real last resort. If there was another way, they'd be doing it. It cant be a long-term solution but it'll do, in the short term, to discourage whatever negative behaviour they're trying to tackle.

"Access to toilets is a human right which they're (just about) not being denied, but so is human dignity, which they most definitely are being denied."

I don't think they're dignity is being denied actually, that is just hyperbole. As a point of interest, dignity isn't a human right anyway.

Am I missing something. Why are toilets at secondary school an ENORMOUS problem?

"So you wouldn't have any issue at all if your workplace implemented a policy whereby you have to ask when you need to go to the toilet - maybe having to justify why you need to go (explain to your male boss that you've just come on) and when you last went

Sounds like most call centres, any job on reception (as you have to get somebody to cover you), any teaching job, any public order job (no wandering off for a leisurely dump without telling anybody when the match is about to kick off), any bar work (as you can't leave a bar unattended), checkout work, working in the Law/Courts ('Sorry, sir, can you stop your evidence? The Clerk's gone to the toilet and the Defendant's Barrister might have come on'), driving a bus, driving a train - there are more jobs where you do have to restrict your pissing to set times/tell other people why you need to leave your post than not.

"Am I missing something. Why are toilets at secondary school an ENORMOUS problem?"

Lots of examples on the thread.

I don't think they're dignity is being denied actually, that is just hyperbole. As a point of interest, dignity isn't a human right anyway.

Fair enough that dignity isn't specifically nominated as a human right, but I'd say that it's linked to the spirit and practical outworking of certain human rights. Did you see the poster above saying she would have bunked off school for 5 days a month rather than have the embarrassment of having to ask to use the toilet during her period? This is the UK (or presumably another western English-speaking country) in 2020 - are we accepting of policies that would cause girls such embarrassment that they should lose a quarter of their education simply for being girls?

MitziK

Making sure that you have cover for a few minutes whilst you nip to the loo is very different from having to ask to go to the loo. Your colleague whom you ask to cover for you is highly unlikely to grill you as to why you need to go to the toilet and why you couldn't have dealt with it at lunchtime.

Even if they do, and effectively force you to indicate to them that you've just started your period, you're an adult with the associated confidence and experience that comes with that. Also, unlike a teenage girl at school, your male colleagues are very unlikely to deliberately stay silent so that they can listen to you having to ask and then go "Eeuuuwww - that's gross" and use your natural female health needs against you as a means to bully or shame you.

@letmeinthroughyourwindow

If it was my child, I'd suggest a bit of resilience but I realise that some parents like to teach their little darlings that their rights are being infringed if they're asked to do something that they don't want to do

Did you miss the bit in the OP where she said her daughter has health issues? TIL you can overcome bowel problems with "resilience" - you should tell the NHS that ASAP, theyve been wasting literal shittonnes of money on treating it with medicine.

"Did you miss the bit in the OP where she said her daughter has health issues?"

Did you miss the bit where OP's dd will simply ask to go to the toilet, then go to the toilet?

"Even if they do, and effectively force you to indicate to them that you've just started your period"

I think you could just say that you need the toilet. I doubt they'll ask for specifics.

"Did you see the poster above saying she would have bunked off school for 5 days a month rather than have the embarrassment of having to ask to use the toilet during her period?"

Take 5 days off rather than raise her hand and say that she needs to go to the toilet? Just like any child, in any school, if they need to go during a lesson.

I think you'll find that the kids will just get on and effortlessly manage to adapt to the new rule. As they do at every school that has ever had to adopt such a policy. It's the parents who are outraged on their behalf. Perhaps a sad face in the local paper? Hugs and prayers at this difficult time.

*Your colleague whom you ask to cover for you is highly unlikely to grill you as to why you need to go to the toilet and why you couldn't have dealt with it at lunchtime.

...your male colleagues are very unlikely to deliberately stay silent so that they can listen to you having to ask and then go "Eeuuuwww - that's gross" and use your natural female health needs against you as a means to bully or shame you*

Oh, you sweet, innocent, child.

I want to work where you do. I wish I had worked there throughout my twenties when every single employer that required constant 'attendance', male or female, that would tell you to be better prepared or that you should see the doctor because it's unacceptable to leave your post.

I'd also quite like to hear what the parents would think if I walked out of a lesson and left their kids to it so I can exercise this 'human right' to piss whenever I like, even if it leaves their children unsupervised. Or how happy they'd be if halfway through running the weekly shopping through the till, the checkout operator gets up and walks off without having to call a supervisor and ask them to cover for a minute first.

At the last school I worked at that was mixed, the way the disruptive girls got to leave lessons was to claim they had their period every time they had a male teacher and didn't fancy staying in the lesson.

In the last single sex school, there were girls who purely coincidentally only ever had period pain when they had double French/Physics/History, but were absolutely fine during break, lunch or the lessons that they liked.

I had bladder problems a teenager caused by not going to the toilet at school (UTI's and kidney infections, some hospital admissions). I have only had one since I left sixth form, and I don't think I was without an infection the whole time I was at school and sixth form. The toilets were basically a no go area during break and lunch, and I generally avoided them if I could. However, I had been told I really needed to stop doing this so had got used to holding my breath when it was too smoky to breath and holding my tongue when other kids called me names (they wanted you to answer back so they had an excuse to hurt you). But this one day my teacher kept the whole class in for break time as a punishment, meaning we had to go straight to next class. I asked the teacher if I could go to the toilet. She said no. I asked again a while later. She said no. I asked again. When she said no, I informed her that I had no intention of pissing myself in class and walked out of the room and went to the toilet. When I came back she told me I was in massive trouble and to go to the year head. The year head laid into me, and then suspended me. My parents came to get me and when they did they asked to speak to him. I don't know what they said but my suspension was lifted. The year head hated me and thought I was a trouble maker because I missed a lot of school due to sickness and often had a sick note for PE or to get me out of homework as well as many many trips to the school nurse. He thought I was skiving, bunking and causing trouble, when actually I was at home in agony on antibiotics YET AGAIN because of the problems with going to the toilet at school. I think I got a detention for saying "piss." As an adult I would use much stronger language if somebody tried to stop me going to the toilet. I have always been able to hold for much longer than I should, which seems like a good thing but actually it caused me to get really ill. I'd be in agony holding it. Now I go to the toilet when there is an opportunity and I'm uncomfortable. Nobody should be in pain from not going to the toilet. I'm only grateful that I haven't had any lasting damage. I had to have my kidney function tested for a long time and I remember one scary time they thought I might have developed sepsis. All because they had a terrible toilet policy (or lack there of)

It's a shame to hear that nothing has changed

Just to comment on the "So you wouldn't have any issue at all if your workplace implemented a policy whereby you have to ask when you need to go to the toilet..." side of things...

I doubt many workplaces with adults in them have to deal with constant vandalism, bullying and behaviour likely to cause harm to minors on a regular basis.

I think you'll find that the kids will just get on and effortlessly manage to adapt to the new rule. As they do at every school that has ever had to adopt such a policy.

But they don’t. The school, generally, don’t see the damage because a lot of it isn’t instantaneousLy devastating and the kids are long gone by the time they realise that the reason they were off school so much or in so much pain was because they were unable to access the toilet as much as they needed to. But the kids it effects will live with it for the rest of their lives..

"But they don’t. The school, generally, don’t see the damage because a lot of it isn’t instantaneousLy devastating"

Devastating consequences to being escorted to the toilet? If true, for a small minority, then (1) parents need to give them coping strategies or talk to school on their behalf if a medical need, and (2) it needs to be weighed against the devastating consequences of whatever criminal or antisocial behaviour the school are trying to combat with this temporary approach.

Solution is to monitor the toilets with an attendant not the individual pupils. And If paying someone minimum wage for five hours a day is Unaffordable the schools should explain their dilemma to LA not humiliate individual pupils or waste teacher time

And no girl should have to disclose private information. Common sense dictates that almost all secondary girls will be menstruating

This is as bad a schools preventing pupils from wearing overcoats in winter.

I’m pretty sure that this will have been implemented because they have had specific issues and this might have been a necessary measure to safeguard pupils. Not that I’d be happy about it. One of those frustrating situations where a small minority spoil it for everyone else. I would contact your daughter’s year leader ASAP to get a toilet pass sorted, and maybe raise a query to governors about why this has been implemented.