AIBU in thinking this could spread rapidly to other schools? Parents have to come into school to change NT DCs if they soil themselves.

[CwmYoy]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/schools-tell-parents-if-your-34349942

It's been a long time coming but I can see it will spread now there are fewer TAs.

As long as SEN needs are taken into account I think it's a good idea.

I ve worked in school for 20 years. Behind the shrill headlines we would take each case on its own merits. Accidents happen to the most reliable children - it’s life.

it’s a tricky one though with only 1 TA if that in class, when you need 2 adults for safeguarding. You have to borrow an already overwhelmed TA from another class if there is one.

what is harder to accept is when parents openly say it’s our job to toilet train their children and put them in pull ups at home but send them in to school in just pants. Yes really. And they didn’t have time to toilet train during covid - the best time ever surely. We had lots in nappies when we returned after lockdown and it doesn’t seem to have improved.

@ghostfacethriller the infant teachers of the past may not have had university degrees but they were highly trained in teacher training colleges. In the seventies B.Ed degrees were brought in. By this time, teaching courses were three years, later four and increasing times of this were spent on teaching practices in schools. Up to the early sixties, teacher training courses were for two very intensive years, but they produced some wonderful teachers. My aunt was one of them. Aged just twenty, she had a reception class with forty children and no adult help. This was normal. Also, many primary school teachers could play the piano. The college where my aunt was trained insisted that every prospective student teacher had attained a minimum of grade 5 on the piano. The reception class has been known as such since at least the sixties. These teachers that would "roll up their sleeves" to change children would not have needed to as, even with the occasional puddle on the floor, which is common in small children, they would have handed the child a pair of dry pants and expected the child to change themselves while they quickly wiped up the puddle and got on with teaching the class. If a child had turned up in nappies, they would not have been admitted to the school until they could go to the toilet independently, unless there was an obvious need. I knew a child with spina bifida and she was unable to contol her bladder. However, she was able to change herself - the teacher was not expected to do so. I think that far too many parents are infantilising their children for far too long. There is a lot of evidence of this in many posts, including children still behaving like teenagers well into their twenties. A child starting school should be able to dress themselves, use cutlery appropriately, take their shoes on and off and use the toilet independently. Surely this is not too much to ask for?

Not sure of the relevance of the first half of this post, especially as you don't appear to have any experience in education yourself. It makes me laugh on MN when people talk about their relatives' teaching experiences - my parents-in-law bang on about what an amazing teacher without the first clue about my career. For about 5 years they thought I arrived at school at 5 minutes to 9! I was there for half 7.

Sorry but I'm not debating how good many teachers were - of course they were, but I believe attitudes have changed, and it's partly because there is a widespread perception that any employee is a cut above when they have a degree.
Also pre National Curriculum expectations of small children in school were much less. I went to a popular middle class primary school in the early 80s and it is night and day from the expectations placed on little ones today.
I remember for example, dinner ladies taking kids to the toilet who needed helping, during lunchtimes.
You say your aunt taught reception, but I take it as you talking historically you mean year 1? 5-6 year olds are very much more developed than 4-5s, especially when many of those 4's may have been 3 just a few weeks before. I really think people are getting muddled about this and thinking that most kids used to start at age 4 decades ago, they didn't.

makes me laugh on MN when people talk about their relatives' teaching experiences-my parents-in-law bang on about what an amazing teacher without the first clue about my career. For about 5 years they thought I arrived at school at 5 minutes to 9! I was there for half 7.

I have to agree with this! There is a fairly prolific poster on these boards who I have heard talk about her mother who taught reception. She apparently had a class of nearly 40 and was amazing-nobody messed with her, and the implication being that teachers today don’t know they are born,

Obviously this class of 39 was just after the war-many years ago. That was pre National Curriciulum so the planning and marking expectations were totally different. No threats of Ofsted, lesson observations, performance management, capability targets, data drops or book scrutinies. The children were living in a world where if the teacher told them off, the parent probably wouldn’t have come up to the school to threaten the teacher afterwards. There probably weren’t any children in nappies or with any significant SEN in the class and if there was poor behaviour, I would imagine a bit of shouting, threats of being sent to the head who had a ruler, or being expelled probably worked well to suppress it.

It’s comparing two completely different things.

@toastandtwo well , again it depends.

Households where both parents work and their toddler is in childcare (nursery, childminder, family etc) for a significant portion of the day, all week, will not consider themselves solely responsible (more like a team effort) because they literally aren't.

Sorry I do not know how to quote! Violinst64 I wish I could spend as much time on tablets as my kids and maybe I wouldn't be so IT illiterate! 😁

@nineandtwenty, I have been involved in education all my career for around forty years. I have worked in mainstream and special schools. I am a music teacher and specialist musician. The first part of my reply to @ghostfacethriller was to point out that university degrees do not necessarily mean that modern teachers and methods are superior to those of the teachers of previous times. I know that modern teachers are under more pressure than ever before, but large classes without adult help is always trotted out as an excuse. Those of us who were born in the fifties and sixties - the boomers so many people on MN like to mock - were in far bigger classes than nowadays, yet we learnt. I have aware that some children with SEN slipped through the net, but, sadly, this still happens. Later toilet training, "waiting until they are ready" appears to be much more of thing with middle class parents than others - and MN is generally very middle class. I recall one such parent, two or three years ago, saying quite unashamedly that she had to change a nappy on her daughter. The child in question was a tall 3½ year old with no additional needs. I will probably now be slated for not understanding special needs. My own oldest child is autistic, but not diagnosed officially until he was five. This was all too common in the nineties. After many attempts at toilet training, he finally cracked it just before his third birthday and was instantly dry day and night. I thought he was terribly late, but once the autism became obvious, I realised what the problem had been. He did have problems with encorpresis until he was eight, but I cannot recall a single accident at school. My younger son was just over 2½ and my daughter just after her second birthday. I would have done it with her earlier, because she was definitely ready, but we had a long overseas trip to visit my husband's family just before her second birthday, so it was easier to delay it slightly until we were at home.
Finally, the rise in SEND children has been mentioned several times on this thread. There is a real increase in these children. I believe there are two main reasons for this. The first is simply that diagnosis is more accurate than in the past. The second is the numbers of very premature babies who survive as by their very nature they have not had long enough in the womb to fully develop. Thirty years ago, if a baby was born before thirty weeks, it was common for them not to survive and if they did, they often had residual problems. Now, thanks to increasing technology and awareness, babies can occasionally survive if they are born as early as 24 weeks. This is amazing but, sadly, rarely comes without lifelong issues.

Children in the UK start school too young IMO, much younger than in a lot of countries. But our economy is set-up for both parents to have to work, and of course there are a lot of single parents who would have to work anyway.

Because of this the purpose of schools, which is to educate children and prepare them for adulthood, has become blurred with a childcare service that enables parents to work. Hence parents assuming that schools can change their children's nappies, brush their teeth etc.

I also lament the loss of sure start centres which were a massive help with these things.

@ghostfacethriller, no l do not mean five and six year olds. In most areas, children started school in the term of their fifth birthday, but in other parts of the country, such as where we lived, the system was the same as it is today. My sister started school in September 1974 aged four years and two weeks. In any case, by the late sixties onwards, it was common for children aged around three to attend a playgroup or nursery, both of which required children to be able to use the toilet independently and change clothes.

I know that modern teachers are under more pressure than ever before, but large classes without adult help is always trotted out as an excuse. Those of us who were born in the fifties and sixties-the boomers so many people on MN like to mock-were in far bigger classes than nowadays, yet we learnt

’Trotted out as an excuse’?!

38 pupils and 1 teacher in 1958 where if the child didn’t behave, they were threatened with the ruler/expulsion and swiftly removed, their parents wouldn’t threaten the teacher, the child was to blame if they weren’t doing any work, is a very different situation to now.

Y1 class in my school-30 pupils, 3 in nappies. SEN at play but still no TA in the afternoon. 2 with ASD diagnosis, 4 with ADHD traits, 1 in care, 1 with a visual impairment. Parental engagement low and lots of attendance issues. 50% of them never read at home. Phonics screening test in 6 months which the teacher will be helped accountable for, no matter what the cohort is like.

Is the current teacher ‘worse’? Are they just ‘trotting out excuses’?!

their parents wouldn’t threaten the teacher

They would. Not every parent but not every parent does now.

@Holidayshopping to be fair, a recently retired reception teacher friend of mine once said that she would rather have a class of 35 four and five year olds with no TAs from the eighties than a class of thirty present day four and five year olds with two TAs. This is because behaviour in general has deteriorated so much in the intervening years. Also, I agree there is far too much pressure on teachers in general these days from every source. They are expected to be childminders, social workers and secretaries, because they have to do so much paperwork. Everything is so proscribed, too. It is a miracle that they find any time at all to actually teach. If you read my posts carefully, you will see that I am not slating teachers of any generation. Rather, I am blaming the lazy, feckless parents who do not prepare their children properly for school.

I think the thing with adult support now is it doesn't matter if I have one child with significant additional needs +10 others or +20 others or +40 others. It's the children with additional needs who takes nearly all my attention and deserves dedicated support. I've taught groups of 40+ on my own for various reasons and it is manageable but not if one (or several) of those children need 1:1 simply to stay safe.

Edited as duplicate post.

" It's the children with additional needs who takes nearly all my attention and deserves dedicated support."

This is simply immoral and you should be ashamed of yourself. All of the children should be getting roughly equal amounts of teaching, you should not be giving all of your attention to 2-3 children at the expense of the rest.

When you have a child that toilet trains normally I can understand this view point but I think this will be a tactic used to force children with additional support needs into special education that could be supported in mainstream school

I started writing a really long message about my experience of schools off rolling pupils and the illegal tactics they use but most won't read this so deleted it. But I have 3 girls all toilet trained now two took 2 years they have ASD the other took 4 months there is only so much you can do.

I'm sure there are some "lazy" parents that think school will toilet train for them that isn't acceptable. But this WILL predominantly affect families of SEN children and be weaponised by trusts looking to push out the children that bring their ofsted scores down.

I have 4dc with autism and 1 with learning disabilities. The dc with autism were all trained between 3 years 10 months and 4 years. One has physical disabilities as well so he had accidents at school regularly in reception and year 1 because he couldn't physically get to the toilet in time. At home I would carry him to the toilet or we would have a potty in the room he was in. By year 2 he could hold it in long enough to make it to the toilet.

My child with learning disabilities was nearly 5 when he was toilet trained. He was the only child in nappies in his reception class. Not sure about now as my youngest is in year 6 and I don't know most of the younger ones but there was always 1 or 2 children in my dc primary school who were in nappies at any given time but certainly not 1 in 4. The reception teacher would usually give out 3 or 4 carrier bags of wet pants a day to various parents and the year 1 teacher would hand out probably 2 or 3 a week. The children in nappies would without exception have SEN. About half would be in SEN schools by year 3. All of them would have been in special needs schools in the 1990's and in residential care in the 1960's.

These days there are lots of children (including mine) who would have been in special schools when I was a child in the 1990's. They are now in mainstream but without enough of the help they need. Children who have downs syndrome, moderate learning was etc are in mainstream school, along with children who have a 1-1 TA for their own safety to stop them escaping or climbing on the roof.

When I was at school in the 1990's we had 1 boy who had cerebral palsy and was in a wheelchair, 1 who probably had adhd because he won everything at sports day and could run like the wind but lots of the teachers refused to teach him and he was always taken out on a trip whenever Ofsted was coming (back when that was allowed). A few who needed TA's to scribe for them and explain things and a couple who were deaf. That's it. And there were enough TA's to go round.

I think the main problem here is there are not enough staff to deal with the problems that children in mainstream school these days have. One teacher and no TA is not acceptable in any reception class. For children who are in nappies but don't need any other support there should be 2 TA's for the whole school who go into each class and change nappies when needed. Those who need more help should have a TA of their own. We should have more health visitors, continence nurses and sure start centres.

I know people will say where is the money coming from and the government can't afford it but they have cut early years and education funding to the bone and this is the consequences.

Children with SEN do disproportionately had bladder and bowel issues. It isn't to do with cognitive levels. I'm not even going to say what I think about SEN children being compared to labradors. Apart from anything it's inaccurate.

For example, children with Autism often have issues with bowel control. No one know exactly why this is but it is very common - way too common to be explained by 'lazy parenting', it is most likely to be a physical difference and perhaps interoception as well. Nothing to do toilet training. I have the t shirt on this and have had years of discussions with paediatric urologists and nurses is paediatric urology departments at Nottingham hospital. There is a certainly a known correlation with SEN but it is still being investigated regarding the exact biological and/or cognitive causes.

So lack of staffing is now something the individual teacher should be ashamed of now?

No-a lack of government funding for schools is not something that teachers should be blamed for or feel bad for.

No wonder there is a massive recruitment and retention crisis.

It's becoming more and more apparent that a lot of posters have no idea about classrooms, teaching, children in general and with SENDs . They just want to froth and spout their "tell it like it is" crap.

How did he know? Is he an OT, EP or SlT?

@AnnaFrith he’s deputy head and the dc have no Sen. While a couple may come out as undiagnosed, he’s been a teacher with various qualifications for many years and has met the parents. Not being toilet trained is becoming the norm with parents seeming to expect dc to just go and use a loo without actual parent intervention. Parents are not claiming dc are delayed they just think it’s normal.