To expect my 11 year old to be able to use the toilet during the school day?

[bendy75]

Is this the norm? My 11 year old started in at secondary school last month and has had two warnings (or stage 2 - Low level disruptions) for asking to use the toilet.

I told him to try and go at break times but he tells me they are locked, confirmed today by staff when I asked, children who have a medical need can apply for a toilet pass but he does not, so has to try and go from 8.00 am until returning home around 3.00pm without using the toilet.

AIBU to be shocked by this?

Tbh op I wouldn't disbelieve him. Dd just left secondary. Toilet was only open at lunchtime and often in a 30 min break it was lunch or.use the Toilet. She did have Toilet pass as GP was horrified when she told her and I confirmed it with the school. She didn't even charge me.for the needed letter.

Would you let a boy go if it was a genuine emergency?

That's the only explanation I can think of.
No school has the toilets locked for the whole school day, that's nonsense.

This is gold.

but honestly what is the issue with going in lessons on occasion?

As stated many times now: self-harm, sex, drugs, dealing, vaping, plain old truancy, bullying, to name a few. All put on the teacher who let them out.

Just make sure kids go one at a time
Incredibly disruptive every time. One gets in, the kids are distracted until they're in their seat. The next one gets up. Repeat. You lose around 10min of every lesson to this if you're on the converyor belt of allowing continuous one in, one out toileting (and yes, it happens. I had to restrict one class to 3 in a lesson max despite allowing them to go before the lesson starts and I still have 3 asking every lesson).

keep an eye on kids that are making a habit of it.
Unlike in primary school we see kids an hour max most days, or once a week, or even just once a fortnight. If you teach 400+ kids it's almost impossible to keep an eye on all and the systems that do require yet more filling in forms/ planners/ online logs.

If there are other behavioural issues then man the toilets,
Lol with what staff, exactly?

or have individual cubicles by classrooms rather than whole blocks of toilets.
And have you been in a school recently? Where do they get the money from to just rebuild and replumb everything? From the budgets we use to deal with regular repairs to ripped off toilet doors, smashed basins, deliberately blocked toilets?

The few have well and truly spoilt it for the many here.

Nobody here has said it's just about abuse. They're just listing reasons why many schools no longer allow free access to the toilets during lessons.

And you know this how?

This is an absolute nightmare OP. You have my sympathy.
However:
Teachers can’t actually tell if a kid really needs to go. If one is allowed, sometimes half the class then troop off too.
The damage done to toilets is extraordinary - sometimes several toilets are out of use due to vandalism.
Kids ask to leave the lesson then go and vape or chat on their phones.
Parents telling kids it is their “human right” to go leads to kids repeating that. Kids need to learn to control their bladder and speak respectfully. Not disrupt the whole class shouting about how they are going to pee/bleed all over the chair.
Would you really want to pay someone to be permanently on duty in the toilets to prevent damage that leads to those toilets not being available when your child needs them?
This wasn’t a thing when I went to school a million years ago.

My DD senior school did this when they were abusing toilets at break ... I really kicked off because of her medical condition - they said she could have a toilet pass which was useless because they're locked in lessons too, there was only 1 toilet open and she had to walk usually - bloody insane!

I haven’t seen anyone say that - locked in lessons, yes. All day with no access? No school staff have said that

This is awful if it’s true. Especially for teenage girls. I remember having very heavy periods and having to go to the toilet 1-2 hourly. It wasn’t an issue we just asked and we could go. I can understand if it’s the same kids causing disruption but to completely lock all toilets ?!

Schools are becoming more and more prison camp like. I don't know why, but it's getting worse.

Being allowed access to a toilet is a basic need. Any school who does not allow pupils o use the toilet facilities as and when they need to should be reported to Local Authority

There are many threads about children's behaviour becoming worse year on year and you can't figure out why more rules are being put in place.

If that ever happened, there would be an overwhelming amount of parental complaints!

@bellamountain It's really been in line with behaviour. You'd be shocked at whats happening in schools.

Maybe your son just needs to be more organised to get to them during breaktime

Yep lets get them prepared for employment in the third world shithole our country has become.

I once had a manager ask me if i was ill because i couldnt shit to her timetable Was tempted to ask her if she expected the same of her Jack Russell!

I restrict my fluid intake to reduce my need to go to the loo when I'm out for the day as I have a toddler who is hard to contain in a public toilet. It is absolutely not ideal for every day and my health definitely suffers if I do it for more than a couple of days.

Not saying that your daughter has a problem, just noting that you might think the same of me based on observations, but my cracked skin and lack of concentration don't lie!! 😳

These schools who are restricting toilet access. I take it they are putting their money where their mouths are and serving lactose free and gluten free equivilents in the school canteens. For those students who have these intolerances to lessen their chances of getting diarrhoea and needing the toilet more often

Children with those needs are given toilet passes.

When I started teaching 20 years ago I dealt with a lot of low level disruption from the kids, the odd fistfight, one or two truants across the school. If a kid didn't turn up to lesson it was their own fault, all I had to do was keep a record of it when questioned about their lack of progress to increase my pay. We had two drug dealers on site who were permanently excluded. We had a few instances of bullying, and the bullies, and the one kid attacking another with a pair of scissors, were all permanently excluded.

These days, people truanting from lessons is normal in all apart from our very top sets. They often hide in toilets, but many just wander the site and run away from staff all day long. The one or two persistent truants I had 20 years ago are now 12-15 truants in the same size school. So on call staff never come, because they're chasing those kids, making behaviour in lessons worse.

Bullying is rife all day, online and offline, and the kids get, maybe, one day in isolation. I get told to fuck off almost daily and nothing happens. Because the bigger issues we have are on-site drug dealing while being required to keep the dealers in school, sex, self-harm, fights barely getting a day in isolation because of rules that say we can't exclude, kids who should not be in mainstream who cannot access the curriculum and then display violent behaviour.

We do what we can to keep kids and staff safe. Staff also have to enforce all kids attending lessons because if they don't get their target grade despite being high as kites/ pregnant/ persistently running off from lessons and staff trying to get them back into lessons/ on their phones all the time/ disrupting lessons to the point we cannot teach, then we, staff, get penalised for it.

So yes, schools are run like prison camps. They're impossible institutions to work in under the parameters given. Blame the successive governments of our time running them into the ground.

If this is what schools are like, home education sounds much more sensible.
:(

God if my kids school was like this I'd be pulling them out instantly.

Most people will never see the daily realities of school.

This is such a minefield of a topic, it extends to other arguments like if young people’s behaviour has gotten worse over the years or not etc. In my situation, my son doesn’t use any public toilets anywhere due to a phobia that I’m trying to deal with. He will reduce or simply not eat or drink throughout the whole school day to avoid going which is a big problem. The toilets in his school get locked during lessons and teachers are strict about enforcing the rule. And whilst it doesn’t affect DS since he didn’t use them anyway, his reason why sort of explains it. A lot was going on in both the boys and girls toilets drugs, smoking, fights, bullying, uncleanliness etc. And the reality is the kids causing these problems are small in number but bad enough to make an impact. I don’t agree with locking the toilets because it just creates a bigger divide between the adults and kids. The more authoritarian policies in the schools, the more some kids will push the boundaries. BUT I don’t have the answers to what the perfect solution is. It’s just a shame

“I've worked in several schools, where the toilets are always locked. You have to go to reception and request a key.
There isn't enough time at break to do this.
Barbaric.”

One of the first handful of responses on page 1.