Year 1 child had accident at school and they had no spare clothes - AIBU?

[ArtemisFlop]

I'd appreciate views about this as I'm turning it over in my mind and feel really uncomfortable (cross!)
DD in year 1 had an accident at school on Thursday, apparently not long before pick up time. This hasn't happened in year 1 before, pretty unusual for DD. In reception we took spare clothes to school but hadn't thought of it when we went back to school after the last lockdown ending in March. After-school nanny called me at work sounding quite worried and said she didn't know what to do as she has been due to take the kids to older child's activity but the TA had handed DD over to her in the playground at pick up time and DD was absolutely soaked. Nanny asked TA if they'd got some spare clothes so she could change her before coming home and TA said they don't have spare clothes and would usually just call a parent and ask them to come in with some but as it had happened so close to pick up they didn't think there'd be time. Nanny ended up bringing both kids straight home so DD could change but we live 30 minutes walk or a 15 minute bus ride from school so DD was wet through all that time plus however long it was before end of the school day that she wet herself. Nanny also told me the conversation about this took place in front of a bunch of DD's classmates and other parents. She said she felt like they just couldn't wait to hand over DD so it was someone else's problem.
I saw the TA in the playground the next day whilst handing over spare clothes for DD which I'll ask them to keep on her leg in case of any further incidents. I told her I was very surprised and disappointed they hadn't been able to offer a change of clothes. T A was apologetic but kept saying 'but I expected to see you shortly' as if the problem had been that nanny picked up and not me. I told her whether it was me or the nanny DD would have the same journey home. But the TA just said they don't have clothes for children and mumbled something about COViD. Have since received an email from the class teacher basically saying the same thing (ie sorry, not sorry).
For info this is a very large primary with a wide catchment and so there'll be many other families who don't live on the doorstep.
AIBU or should primary schools have a change of clothes for the occasional accidents and not leave children in wet clothes until parents arrive?

Im sure they would have something in lost property. Totaly not acceptable! Gets on my nerves that covid is a excuse for everything!

@Mumdiva99

The school should not have left her in wet clothing. That is completely unacceptable. Please write to the HT, explain you have already discussed it with the TA and Class teacher and it's not reasonable to leave any child wet for any length of time.

Tell them the resolution you would lile is that they review their policy to ensure this doesn't happen to any other child.

Additionally- there should have been no discussion about this in front of other children and parents.

(When my kids had an accident in y1 or even y2....the member of staff that noticed actually sent all the kids into the playground so they were unaware of the issue. They then gave.my kids clothes to wear....borrowed pants and pe kit - but if there was no pe kit it would be lost property. Not keeping spare clothes in school 'because of covid' does not put the welfare of the kids first.

Exactly right. Using Covid as a constant reason as a replacement for decency and common sense is not on. A child was left in cold sodden clothes I cannot believe that they couldn't find a way of ensuring she was dry. There must have been something somewhere. Poor judgment indeed and I would have had major words with the teacher there and then.

YANBU school should always have something kicking about. Accidents happen at all ages but especially in KS1.

I'd write a calm complaint to the head and ask them to change school policy. If the head doesn't agree you can escalate to governors.

Our school has a whole bucket of spares each year for this reason and others - forgotten jumper etc. It's a school! They absolutely should!

@Jamboree01

It is not a part of life. Honestly, we are not in the 1800s. Even if schools don’t provide new clothes, they tend to have lost property boxes full of clothes they can lend to a child.

Has all empathy been lost or is it just me?

Exactly this. It's just jaw dropping.

@Nittersing

We just don't have the funding for providing full changes of clothes. I have a year 1 who currently wears size 14 boys clothes and my smallest girl wears a size 4. We don't get the clothes returned ( not 1 item ever). Our parents are told at the start of the year to put a change of clothes in their child's bag and if there isn't any there then we will call if an accident occurs.

These magical spare clothes you speak of cost me (personally ) to supply. The govt funding for schools is stretched already...we barely have funding for things we should have like readers and art supplies let alone having on hand a complete change of clothes ( including socks and underpants) in each size.

I personally supply spare clothes whereever possible but sometimes it's just not. I'm currently down to 1 pair of size 6 pants along with about 4 pairs of assorted underpants and as its a change of season my own kids are needing new clothes too.

Parents, if you don't want a phone call and don't want your child in damp clothes waiting for you then put spare clothes in their bag.

I promise you that teachers are already trying so hard to meet the needs of the children in their class. No one is trying to cause distress to children . We are already doing what we can. Next time you vote look for who is increasing school funding, look for which parties support teachers and their working conditions, pay rises and educational funding especially anything in poor areas.

I'm so sorry that your child went home wet after school but please just pop a change of clothes in her bag for 'just in case' and move on.

Just no, this is not on. She didn't need a full set of clothes. Just a pair of joggers, shorts or whatever. Not even undies. Just something dry. I donate old clothes that aren't fit to be handed down or sold to school for their seconds buckets. Funding is a piss poor excuse. Send an email home and ask for old bottoms for this reason snd you'll have sackfuls by morning.

YABU. Your posts sound very entitled and lacking in empathy. It's very obviously an issue with covid rules which means no one has spare PE clothes in school. Plus the timing being close to pick up is relevant.

It's also a sad state of affairs for there to be no one on hand if a child needs emergency help. Surely your nanny is employed for this purpose as you work too far away? DH and I both can be far away from school but coordinate our diaries so someone can always be in in half an hour hopefully max to pick up a sick child or deal with this kind of thing.

It's obvious to me that school can't keep spare clothes because they'd be sent home and not returned.

One of my dc is always accidentally weeing down his pants when on the toilet or dunking in a puddle at playtime and he got sent home in PE shorts. I remember nursery used to send them home in too small or woefully inappropriate girls clothes (they are boys) I never expected them to be able to keep tonnes of clothes in as whilst I would wash and send back lots of people are disorganised and nursery / school workers can't keep track of who took a pair of old knickers home.

I suggest an attitude adjustment of being more understanding and working with the school.

That poor TA having you hectoring and blaming her. Unless they do something actually wrong (and then it would be time to address the head teacher) how about being polite and friendly from now on?

This happened to my 5yo earlier in the day and I was called to school (unusual for her). Normally kids would put on P.E. clothes. Or failing that they have a cupboard of spares. Not getting changed for P.E. and DoE guidance means they got rid of the spares (Covid). I've sent in a spare set of clothes in a resealable sandwich bag that lives at the bottom of her schoolbag. It saves future problems. Also sent a message round the class whatsapp so other parents are prepared.

All of what you have said. I asked if she asked to go to the toilet and still don’t know.

My teenager suffered with chronic diarrhoea for years at primary but felt couldn’t ask to go to the toilet in school so held it all in repeatedly.

Then it caused chronic constipation.

These comment s are brutal. I am a secondary school teacher and I would never leave a child sitting in urine soaked clothes. Not even for a minute

Surely it's not that difficult for schools to build up a stash of spare clothes for accidents. At our nursery, they have a "spares box" which is filled by parents donating outgrown clothes. If it's running low, they send a note round to parents saying what they need and the parents bring in bagfuls of stuff.

Gobsmacked that leaving a small child in urine-soaked clothes can be considered acceptable. 5 is really not that old to be having the occasional accident.

@Mumdiva99

The school should not have left her in wet clothing. That is completely unacceptable. Please write to the HT, explain you have already discussed it with the TA and Class teacher and it's not reasonable to leave any child wet for any length of time.

Tell them the resolution you would lile is that they review their policy to ensure this doesn't happen to any other child.

Additionally- there should have been no discussion about this in front of other children and parents.

(When my kids had an accident in y1 or even y2....the member of staff that noticed actually sent all the kids into the playground so they were unaware of the issue. They then gave.my kids clothes to wear....borrowed pants and pe kit - but if there was no pe kit it would be lost property. Not keeping spare clothes in school 'because of covid' does not put the welfare of the kids first.

This is good advice.

Those people saying "just give some lost property" must understand that lost property is just a collection of jumpers and coats this year. With children coming in their pe clothes on pe days, its impossible for them to end up going home without their trousers. There really isn't random lost property.

The school cocked up and need to change the policy. They didn't think this issue through. Or, possibly, they did have a solution but the TA didn't know it and wasn't able to find it out minutes before home time. In which case, the policy needs to be shared with staff properly.

Getting angry is pointless. Firmly stating that this should not be allowed to happen again is meaningful.

I’m a head of year in secondary school and have ensured that my school has a stash of new uniform and shoes for all children when neededz

I think that most of the humane people here are angry about the lack of compassion for children in a lot of the posts.

If it hadn’t happened a few minutes before home time it would have been easier to sort.

The teacher can’t leave the class on their own unattended to run around the school gathering clothes and changing a wet child and it’s very difficult to grab extra staff at the end of the day. Busiest point of the day.

Stash of clothes should be there waiting. Shouldn’t require any staff running around the school.

I'm really amazed schools don't have clothing for general emergencies. When I was a child there was always lots of lost property and a few bits of essential uniform. I remember being about 8 and my classmate vomiting and it going all down my top and being given a spare to wear immediately. My parents both worked and it would have been at least an hour til they could get there.

I would talk to pta/parents OP and ask if any parents can donate uniform for an emergencies box , labelled school property.

Back in the day when being kind was in fashion.

It’s clearly not in fashion anymore

The school handled it badly and should have telephoned to ask clean clothes to be brought to school.
However, as @Nittersing says, it is really, really difficult to keep enough spare clothing in school. Parents rarely return it -and when it is returned it's not always returned clean (who do you think takes it home and washes it?) - and teachers / TAs have to search round school for something that will fit. There is no funding for spare clothes and lost property does not tend to have pants/trousers in it. I have lost count of the amount of clothing I have donated to schools I've worked in over the years. When my daughters were primary age mums of their friends would give me the children's outgrown underwear to take in to work which I was always thankful for. So perhaps a takeaway from this for everyone is that if you are able to donate clean, outgrown, pants/ leggings/ trousers then ask your child's teacher if they would be useful.

And honestly Covid is no longer a reasonable excuse imho.

The evidence around risk of Covid transmission via surfaces was always a stretch at best, and that tiny risk could be managed by putting clean uniform items in sandwich bags. I would have thought there is far more Covid transmission risk from a child walking round soaked in bodily fluids than there is from a box of spare uniform kept in an office somewhere.

YANBU OP, and I would escalate it further as a lack of basic care. As some PPs have said, there is any number of reasons why a child may need a change of clothes in any year group. Our HT complained how often the older boys managed to fall in large puddles whilst playing football at one PTA meeting (in a good-natured way!) and needed a complete change of clothes. Even as an adult at work, I have had a freak accident where I was covered head to toe with a nasty chemical. After being chucked into the emergency shower to hose it off (and drying off with Blue Roll. Lovely.), work managed to scrape together some clean, if very ill-fitting, clothes. It happens!

Maybe suggest to the school they put out a request to parents for donations of outgrown uniform if they can't afford to buy a fee spares themselves. This is how our school is stocked except underwear, which is new. Covid is no excuse, donations can be quarantined before use.

FWIW, my yr2 DD had an accident at school a few days ago. I didn't know until she told me, as she had been given the same uniform choice as she'd been sent in so no one (inc classmates) would have noticed. It was handled kindly and without fuss.
On another occasion, then-preschooler DD2 vomited spectacularly whilst visiting the main school. Obviously I was called to collect her, but when I got there she was clean and dry in spare clothes. School were incredibly apologetic that it was all so oversized as they only had age 5+ spares (which was of course completely unnecessary, I was just pleased she was well looked after!).

The covid issue is probably that children are coming into school in their PE kits now so there’s no extra kit lying around. It’s not that the school think the children can catch covid from clothing!

So what about primary school kids who have to leave their bags in the cloakroom? And have to ask for permission to go to the bag and then the toilet?

And what about the children who have parents who would consider doing this? Or have been put into emergency foster care?

*wouldn’t

The school should have spares but things happen. Parents don’t return them. Lost property may have been on the other side if the school. Maybe the TA didn’t know what to do. It’s reasonable to ask the school to consider their policy but I think this is one of these situations where a few unlucky things all happened at the same time. TA in charge, no spare clothes around, end of the day when she can’t leave the class unattended etc.

This thread has been revealing. I always treat the children and young people in my care as I would want my own children to be treated.