To be appalled by school toilet restrictions

[GoodWitch65]

Had a period talk with my DD age 11 and mentioned to have a pouch with sanitary products to be kept in her school bag just in case. She told me they are not allowed to use toilets at school during the class, only during the break. I was very surprised, growing up in European country this was never a problem in my school, everyone was allowed to use toilets whenever they needed. Spoke to a friend of mine, her kids go to another school, apparently this a standart practice I just can't wrap my head around how and why? My friend's DS used to have frequent kidney infections and wasn't allowed to use the toilet when he needed to, she had to get a note from GP to make him 'exempt' from the rules so he could use the toilet. Also her DD has started her period and had asked to use the toilet but was told no, poor girl had bled through her clothes, left a blood stain on her chair and got told off by the teacher for doing so! My friend sent numerous complaints to school but no to avail. I feel like I want to make some changes in 'toilet rules' at school but not sure where to start. It's a basic human need, even prisoners get to use the toilet when they need, why would primary school children be denied?

You know absolutely nothing about me or where I live. We’ve had knives in primary schools too, for example. I live in a very deprived area of the U.K.

I repeat again, the problem is discipline. If large numbers of children in a school are causing problems, then that needs sorting, but it’s the impact on the other children that’s unfair. Whether the “sorting” means stricter rules, sanctions, more support or whatever, would depend on the circumstances.

We just changed pads/ went for a wee between lessons if we needed to. I'm really not seeing why a it's such an issue. Lessons aren't any longer than an hour usually.

This thread really makes me see the value of home educating. If kids are so badly behaved that it's a safety risk to others if they go for a toilet break, I think I'll opt out.

@BreatheAndFocus The issue with discipline is that parents don't support school rules. As shown on this thread by the posters telling DC to ignore the rule. If it's OK to ignore toilet rules, then it's OK to pick and choose which school rules apply to you (is the mindset of children).

Schools have no power. We're criticised by ofsted for too many exclusions. Detentions work for minor offenders but for the increasing number of persistenly disruptive and defiant students we are left flailing.

Parents would be horrified to see inside a real classroom environment now.

I totally agree. My kids in secondary don't use the toilet as they have a 5 min 'movement time' which literally only allows to move to a different classroom.

I'm a teacher in a secondary school. Tge toilet issue is a nightmare. Many pupils fo not go at break and then ask to go in lessons. We have bern asked not to.let people go in lessons but use our discretion and fo sometimes give permission. The reason for thos restriction is to fold: it causes disruption to the lesson and as the domino effect starts re asking for permission and also the vandalism.thst happens. Kids put plastic bottles down the toilets. This blocks all neighbouring toilets including staff facilities. Kids use toilets to vape too. Kids moan about the state of the toilets,and I regularly remind them it's not the teachers who are vandalising the place.

If anyone is bleeding through a pad in 2 hours they need to see a GP about their periods. That's beyond the "normal" amount of bleeding (having been there).
There is discretion allowed in most places. But the problem isn't the one off girl who's started her period. It's the 15% whose parents have given them permission to walk out to 'go to the toilet' and the student dissappears for half the lesson.

That is definitely not beyond normal.

Especially on the first day of your period. Its a heavy flow.

Ok, with your experience of these sorts of issues in schools then. Exactly what sanctions would you put in place when these issues are widespread across the school, the children have complex needs, behavioural issues, sen, social issues at home, and already are vulnerable. Persistent low tendance is one of the key predictors of becoming a young offender. So, if we lay down the law and either exclude the children from school or make it so strict that they refuse to attend, we are simply pushing the problem back into wider society.

How would you safely balance that with your personal experience of knife violence even among primary pupils? What discipline do you think you would introduce so kids could happily go to the toilet whenever without wandering off, going missing, getting into mischief and then actually returning to class? Because multiple staff across multiple agencies are trying to address these problems and have not managed yet.

One of the local primaries used to give the kids (including the year one's) a 5 min break time detention for asking to go to the loo during class time - a few kids wet themselves - no surprise there. Schools are often not humane places - I think teachers must lose some of their humanity after a few years of teaching...or maybe they didn't have any to begin with. The rules and order matter more than feelings, despite the apparent awareness of the mental health crisis - our schools are a mess - what do you expect when they are asked to simultaneously compete with other schools for prime position on the league tables whilst operating on a shoestring budget? The dysfunctional approach to managing kids is inevitable.

Low attendance*

Oh yes. It's so easy to expel disruptive pupils... 🙄

Thanks - I try never to our anything specific anyway, but good to know!

I agree. My periods were very light when I first started and certainly never soaked through my clothes.

@Mooshamoo Tell that to My GP then who said it was beyond normal....
Floods happen, however no female floods every Tuesday 10 minutes into their maths lesson. The reality of chances of flooding, plus 2 hourly toilet windows not being enough are very rare. I've taught for 15 years and had to leave a lesson once for a flooding incident.
Discretion for the rare cases is fine.

Schools aren't dealing with rare cases of flooding. They're dealing with defiant kids who don't want to learn, so use the toilet as an excuse to leave lesson, and parents back the students.

@GoodWitch65

If that happened to my dd and she bled then got told off I would be raising merry hell and if the school didn't respond I would be lodging a complaint with council and mp.

@LolaSmiles

OK

Same here grew up in another country that ranks one of the worlds best in PISA education tables without following nonsense rules that british schoolkids have to put up with and are at in the middle or in the bottom of the barrel in PISA tables.

Uniforms, restrictions on hair styles and make up,going to the toilet, time needed off for being sick or holidays etc.

All my kids are home educated cant put up with this nonsense.

These examples are unacceptable. However I worked at a school where we discovered one girl just asked to go to the toilet every lesson and spent the majority of the lesson there (she was struggling academically, not accessing the curriculum and needed support) so there does need to be some kind of oversight of it like the teacher signing a homework diary or something like that.

Ah memories, this is what our primary school loos were like, I never went in unless absolutely bursting.

Because of recent tiktok trends, vandalising school toilets is quite a common occurrence in schools. If it's done in lesson time and there are no witnesses, it can be hard to prove who is involved. It's also sometimes multiple students, and schools are under pressure not to exclude - it would be very unlikely that the school would exclude, say, 8 students at once over vandalism.

I've previously worked in a school where all but one of the boy's toilets were damaged by vandalism in a day. If they'd damaged the last one, potentially the school could have been shut for multiple days whilst everything was fixed.

Btw this was a secondary with good results and a largely affluent intake.

Vaping in toilets is also a massive issue, and again difficult to police.

In the nicest way, it sounds like you have no idea what the average British secondary is like. There's a reason so many have gone down the route of Draconian rules.

It's not my preferred way to treat students as a teacher but I can see why some schools feel they have no choice.

I don’t get the problem. Notorious toilet time-wasters or vandals should be refused leave to use the toilet during lessons. The rest should be deterred from asking unless it’s an emergency (eg period).

It's still not easy. There isn't a clear divide between time-wasters and students who genuinely need the toilet. It's impossible to judge whether a student really needs to go or not. They are very convincing. Asking in an emergency or when on period can't easily be done subtly. It is often not known who the vandals are. Writing toilet trips in planners, checking lists of who is and isn't currently allowed to go to the toilet wastes yet more time in lessons. If there were a simple solution to this, we'd all be using it!