To want to understand and get something to be done about the school toilet issue.

[Rasell]

Until a couple of days ago I was blissfully unaware of the fact that lots of children are unable to go to the toilet all day at school on a daily basis, because lots of schools countrywide lock their toilets during lesson time and then are either too understaffed to open them or there are just too many children trying to use them, there's not enough time to eat and queue up for the toilet so these children are forced to hold it in all day, every day.
This seems to be because of appalling antisocial behaviour, destroying the facilities, bullying and worse but I'm not clear as to whether that's always the reason why.
I very much sympathise with schools having to deal with this and am horrified by the utter lack of values, respect, care, integrity and common decency that some people are raising their children to have. I don't know how to solve that problem but it definitely can't be blamed on schools or government, in my opinion; if you have children, raise them to be decent human beings. That's your job.
Denying children the right to use the toilet is unacceptable, though.
No-one can expect older children to just swan off at any given moment for a wee when they're busy doing a task in a lesson; if I need the loo while I'm busy at work I wait until I finish it then I go. However, if I've got my period and am leaking, or suddenly get a tummy ache or something, then I go immediately. Why should that be different at school? Why should they sit there in a pool of blood or desperately trying to hold their poo? How can they focus or work to their best ability?
This feels like pensioners having to choose between heating their homes or eating, or children coming to school without having breakfast and not being able to concentrate. We can't allow our children to have to choose whether they eat or go to the toilet, or sit in a classroom unable to follow the teacher because they're worried they're going to wet themselves. Boys weeing in bushes and girls holding it in all day...this is madness!!
The thread I was following was a mix of people's experiences from either side of the argument and rants. I really want to understand what's going on because I think we need to do something about it. I'm no-one and don't even have any children going through this but I'm so shocked by it that I want to get some facts and start a petition, I don't know, do something! Please help with useful information and comments. Thank you!

Theoretically, unless there is a medical need ( including periods) there should be no more than two hours at the most between breaks, so the majority should be able to use the toilet during break times.

I say theoretically, because in practice, it’s not what happens. There is insufficient time and too few operational toilets. There are toilets that are trashed, there are students who leave without permission, there are those who stop others etc etc.

When I was last teaching, my office backed onto a block of girls toilets. I wish I had £1 for every time I left what I was doing to remove girls during lesson time, who were stuffing toilet paper down the toilets and across the floor, sitting on the hand basins, stuffing paper in the plugs and flooding the basins, writing on the mirrors and generally having a good chat.

I don’t know what the answer is. I’m sure some schools must have it right, but I don’t know of any. Of course there should be access to toilets, of course it’s unfair to expect children and young people to spend all day without access to a toilet. But it is very dispiriting when you see newly refurbished and cleaned toilets reduced to a filthy and unhygienic state on a regular basis.

I saw the post the other day and did wonder about the legalities of NOT opening on a break. (Didnt read all the replies)
As you've stated an unexpected stomach upset /heavy period mean that sometimes you have to be able to go. Our fs school loos are locked during lessons but in an emergency pupils can get a key from reception . Name and times recorded so they know who has had access if there is any damage done.
Their school have 1200 pupils on roll. Let's say 600 girls and 600 boys . Even if half only need to use the loos at school you are never gonna get through 300 kids in the loos over lunch time.
Personally if our child's school did thus I would be complaining about it To the LA, governors body etc with a break down of numbers and how they honestly expect that to work.

Does this mean that a girl on her period will need to explain to the teacher in front of the class that she needs to go?

DD's high school council voted to have cameras installed in the toilets to deal with anti social behaviour. It worked. The girls proposed it and voted for it.

Ok so I’ve been a teacher in a mainstream secondary for the last 10 years and there is a serious rot in schools at the moment, this toilet issue is the very tip of the iceberg.
Most schools are now part of multi academy trusts. My Mat has 8 schools in it and we are about to absorb 3 more. The man who sits at the top earns more money in a month than I do in a year. When I started teaching we had one head teacher and two deputy heads, now the school has 8 ‘assistant heads’ earning a fortune. They are nowhere to be seen around school, they certainly don’t do toilet duties. Toilets in mainstream school are horrible places. Bullying, vandalism, smoking etc - you have heard it all before. Now senior leaders aren’t going to stand by the loos to make sure the kids are behaving they delegate one of us to do it. There are 137,000 members of a Facebook group called ‘get out of teaching’ and every day it’s the same story - “I’m sitting in the car park crying”, “I’ve picked out the tree I’m going to crash my car into” etc. Your ordinary run of the mill teachers don’t have time to care for their own basic needs and SLT won’t help so they just lock the toilets and leave teachers to deal with the fallout and then also get the blame. It’s just one of a hundred things that would shock you to your core if non teachers had to experience it too. Yes, absolutely I agree teachers chose this job etc etc but this isn’t what we signed up for. Part of my job is training new student teachers and the quality of trainees for the past 5 years has ranged from awful to the downright bizarre. No one wants to be a teacher, and throwing money at trainees won’t help if they can’t do the job. In 5 years time we will wish this was still our only problem in secondary schools. Fwiw I always let kids go to the loo.

YANBU. I read that thread with dismay. Years ago on MN there used to be threads about teachers not letting teenagers go to the toilet during lessons and while there were always a range of opinions, general consensus seemed to be that in an emergency, it was acceptable to get up and walk out. Getting a detention or whatever other sanction for doing that would be far preferable to being the person who wet yourself or bled on the seat in class.

Having the toilets locked seems inhumane to me. Worse than teenagers smoking or truanting in the there. It's denying a basic human need. Yes, some kind of policy is needed so that you don't have students in and out of class all day, but this 'solution' is so inappropriate.

My nephew is at secondary school and says he can't go all day for the reason, there's no staff to monitor the toilets.

In my day there used to be prefects on duty, can they not do this today?

My daughter is in her second year at seniors now and she complains about the toilet all the time.
Not allowed to go in lessons, they are locked, so inbetween lessons they are still locked.
Break times and lunchtimes they are full of older girls who sit in the the bathrooms eating and vaping etc so she won't go in.
No staff to supervise obviously. So she doesn't drink instead. Which leads to migraines. I'm going to have to take her to the doctors so I can get a GP note so she can apply for a toilet pass.
It's so ridiculous but I still understand it to an extent.

I'll post what I posted (in response to another poster) on the other thread:

I don't think you fully understand the crisis in schools. Yes, funding has been cut to the bone - that means that breaks have been shortened (particularly lunch break) because that means that schools can close to the kids earlier. If schools can close earlier then that saves money on lighting and heating (although the heating isn't on much anymore anyway). If lunch breaks are shortened then that saves money on lunchtime supervisors (teachers are not paid over lunchtime so if you want them to do a lunch duty then you have to pay them extra to do so).

Schools cannot hire support staff, even if they want to. This isn't necessarily because they don't have the funds (although a lot of positions have been cut too), it's because no one wants to work in schools anymore. Part of this is the vicious cycle caused by poor behaviour, part of this is due to more flexible working options opened up by covid, and part of this is due to terrible pay which means working in a supermarket is more attractive. Schools also cannot hire teachers, a lot have quit (so those telling teachers that they're awful and shouldn't be around kids PLEASE shut the fuck up, you are part of the problem). Teacher trainee recruitment figures are on the floor. If your teachers have quit and you can't hire permanent replacements then this means supply teachers. A constant churn of teachers means that the kids get no consistency which is unsettling. It also means that teachers don't build relationships with them. If you have a constant churn of teachers who haven't built relationships with the kids or knackered burned out-teachers who don't have the time to do it, then you have to have behaviour management systems which don't rely on building relationships or actually knowing the kids. The 'draconian' ones that parents are now complaining about do the job. If pastoral staff have been cut to the bone then the relationship building and counselling that used to happen with the 'naughty' kids also gets cut.

Break (unlike lunch) is time that teachers are are paid for (which is why they can be required to do break duty but not lunch duty). If break is got rid of, then that frees up over an hour and a half of paid teacher time per week that can be then used elsewhere. Break duties also require permanent staff who know what they are doing and where they are meant to be. If your school has a lot of supply teachers every day, you're not going to be able to cover break duties and the kids will be left unsupervised.

If you can't get your head around why schools might consider these drastic-sounding actions, it's because you don't understand how bad things have got. Posters suggesting hiring staff to monitor toilets or installing technological solutions to schools that can't afford glue sticks or exercise books might need to reconsider.

And if you're finally coming around to the idea that the situation in schools is really bad via what is happening to the toilets, then you might want to ponder what is happening in classrooms or SEN bases.

This is the position in my child's secondary school, insufficient toilets and they're locked during lessons. It's appalling. If you've got an upset stomach you have to ask for permission to leave the class, then go to another block to get a key. This would be unacceptable in a workplace. We're storing up health problems when children won't eat or drink and put off going to the toilet all day.

They've also got mixed sex toilets now; the washing area shouldn't be communal in these, they should have a hand basin in the cubical (eg as in marks and Spencer's).

@Rasell please read what @noblegiraffe has said because they sum it up so succinctly.
The toilets are the tip of the iceberg in regards to what is happening in schools.

Prefects used to have a certain amount of respect from the the other pupils.
Since covid they just get ignored and bullied.
Eventually due to the abuse and lack of support from SLT they give up.

The bottom line is teaching children to respect other people's property and respect each other.

My school had £1000s of damage done hence the toilets are only open at break and briefly between lessons to prevent damage.

Solution:

1. hold parents accountable for any damage so it doesn't have to be taken out of school budget.

2. severe consequences for children "loitering" in toilets (vaping with their mates) and preventing others from using them as it is too intimidating.

And yet, the children I mention in '2' above are often the same ones that demand to go and pee in lessons (as how can they pee at break with 4 of them in a cubicle vaping...) and then their parents claim we are denying them of their basic rights.

On one occasion I arrived at my break time toilet duty (yes, we actually have to station teachers on the toilets!) and had to remove 22 children from the open plan toilets. There were 10 in the main bit, but as I walked down to the 4 cubicles, another 12 came out of the cubicles!

So what would be a suitable consequence for these kids? 1 day exclusions? Can you imagine the uproar from the parents?? My little darling did nuffin' wrong and got excluded for going to the toilet... Daily Mail front page!

My son has a toilet pass as he has stomach issues and may need the toilet urgently. So I assume his secondary school toilets aren't locked as he's never had an issue going.

It's disgusting. My daughter was queuing for the toilet at break time, she was on her period, needed to change and also needed the loo. She got a detention for being late to class!
We should be protecting our children against this, it is a basic human right.
I've spoken to the school and it is pointless.

We're taking away children's basic human rights (imagine your boss locking the toilet all day except at lunch), not letting them drink water when they need it and then expecting them to respect people and property and conform when animals are given more freedoms

I don’t think you have a clue what schools are like at the moment. Full of violent, entitled and anti social kids for the most part with no staff left to keep the rest safe.

DH is a senior leader. There’s no staff. He’s working 14 hour days without going to the toilet or eating any food. His own family see him at weekends only yet he’s still working then too. I’m sure a kid can wait an hour between lesson changes. Obviously emergencies occur but for the most part it’s kids having a skive. I mean how often do you get diahorrea really? How often do you need the toilet so urgently you can’t wait an hour- medical issues aside. Surely a tampon lasts more than an hour unless you’re caught out. Toilets are one of the worst hubs for bullying and horrible behaviour, hence why now there’s a staff member assigned to make sure nobody is bullying someone or vaping or drug taking in there, that’s teachers break time also gone to keep your kids safe and still parents do nothing but moan.

No wonder there are high levels of mental health problems amongst our young people. Ridiculous uniform rules in some schools and not even letting them go to the toilet when they need to. Fortunately, we don't have these problems at our children's schools but if we did, I would be looking for proper solutions and not excuses.

We are talking about schools where the toilets are locked at lunch and break times too, not just during lesson times. That’s not an appropriate response to antisocial behaviour.

IamasentientoctopusNails it.

I hope this issue does get parents annoyed and involved and questioning about what actually is going on in schools. My school is still LA controlled, not sure for how much longer! The academisation of schools into MATS is a scandal.

Huge amounts of money being pumped into education and constantly monitoring and measuring everything and everyone and the operational basics such as toilets and dinners can’t be sorted! Huge classes of 34 with a range of SEND, no TA, very little resources but the Chief Execs can sit in their ivory towers strategising over where to make cuts next! And where to apply the pressure next.

An uninspiring curriculum being force fed to disinterested children, for whom life is pretty bleak. Of course the kids want to piss about in the toilets!

I wish I knew what the answer was here. I teach in a large secondary school and all the toilets are locked during lesson time, but open during break/lunch. Students with a medical pass can go when they want to, and we also give out 'menstruation passes' (I know- cringe!) which actually seem to be working ok. I echo what others have said, the toilets are treated appallingly by students, when I am on toilet duty at break I'm kicking out kids who are vaping, dealing with those who are actively clogging all the sinks/toilets on purpose and I've even had girls throw used sanitary towels around the toilet or hide them in cracks so people touch them by accident. This is all in a school which has cameras in the toilets and actively deals with those who cause incidents. When I started teaching 15 years ago, these incidents were fairly few and far between, now they are daily and more and more teens simply do not care if they're caught/punished. We also have more students than ever before using "can I go to the toilet?" as a reason to abscond from the school site or even take drugs in the loos. I feel keenly for those who are punished alongside by not going to the toilet when they want to, I wish we had a solution for them- but we are simply not allowed to let one student go because "they're a good one" and then not another. The only way the school has seen to avoid all of this is to shut the toilets during class hours- leading to a huge backlog at break/dinner. It's the perfect storm.

Toilets should just be open at break and a lock with a key at lesson time. This is how our school toilets were. You just went and asked for the key and were expected back with in 10 mins or you would get a detention. They were radar locked and all the teachers has a key to give out.

Thank you all for your replies. Hope is quickly fading! 😂
@noblegiraffe I actually asked if getting lunch time supervisors to do more hours or installing the fingerprint system like lunchtimes would work on the other thread! 😂
To those of you who are living this and work in these terrible schools it must just seem like another brick in the wall and inevitable...we must sound like we're living in a dream world making these suggestions. Is there anything you think that could be done to improve the situation? And you, @Iamasentientoctopus what do you think?

You are being very unreasonable not to blame governments (and the people who voted for them), but otherwise yes.

I'm applying for secondary schools and, having attended a private school myself, am absolutely horrified and terrified at the state schools we've looked at (all supposedly among the best in the country). How on earth does it make sense to make children travel to different areas to attend enormous places with thousands of other children, understaffed, stressed teachers doing their best but in a difficult situation? If schools are safe to send children to, why do they have security guards and knife detectors?

As for the loos, well, I do remember teenagers even at a small private girls' school not being the nicest of human beings, but our loos were never, ever staffed and were always clean and safe. Yes we smoked joints in them, but we always cleaned up afterwards!

Surely the answer should be that classrooms have a en-suite girls & and ensuite boys toilets. Perhaps 2 doors separating them for privacy but that should stop groups of kids messing about in toilets? The teacher will see who went in there and when...? I know that would only be likely to happen in newly built schools due to existing building styles but i think that would be the answer.