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.

The level of vitriol on this thread is quite astounding.

I’d love to see the statistics on children entering reception in nappies who are only in nappies because parents can’t be bothered. We know there is a steep increase in children with SEND and yet, on a forum full of supposedly educated people, you cannot make the connection between increase SEND and decreased continence abilities?

I hear anecdotes all the time but where is the actual evidence.

Very few 4/5 year olds who are developmentally average are willing to remain in nappies. If they are, there is a problem.

If there is neglect at home and the child is not meeting their usual developmental milestones, I would expect a referral to children’s services. I am yet to see any evidence of a steep increase in this area either. If there is neglect, then calling the parent is the wrong thing to do. The correct course of action is to push children’s services to assess. Sending the soiled child back to the neglectful home is compounding the neglect. Then when the child ends up in the news, you all weep and wail and “hug my babies tighter”. If you truly believe a parent is not bothered to help their child with a basic life skill, then remember safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and refer.

I think some people are ignoring the issue of staffing and are saying that the school will have to deal with it.

How exactly when there is no TA or spare member of staff?

There are many schools these days with just one teacher per class, so there is no one to take a child off to change him/her. Most children can deal with wee on their own. Give them clean clothes and send them to the toilets. That's always happened. But maybe they would struggle to deal with shitty pants - hence the need for parents.

A teacher cannot trundle 29 kids into another teacher's class to be minded while she changes the clothes of one child.

We see complaints here from parents of children granted a 1 to 1 TA when the TA has to deal with some emergency - but sometimes needs must.

The whole issue is, to me, down to staffing as well as some lazy parenting.

I kept asking , but apparently numbers are irrelevant.

And then they quote the 1 in 4 from the kindred research, but that's frequent toilet mishaps, rather than nappies and the charity themselves admit that due to the process of diagnosing SENDs the process of collecting the data was complicated.

But you know, why ask and look for facts or use critical thinking when you can just... froth?

Yes I meant to say I can't imagine there would many incontinent teens in a mainstream school
My son is severely autistic but is out of nappies from around 9/10 but lots of the kids in his special are still in nappies he's 14

A child who is 3 y 8 m corrected age is usually going to be too young to be ready for school. Most nurseries are happy to take children up to 5 and it is possible to defer and stay in preschool. If your child is 4 months premature, delayed (highly likely given the prematurity) AND an August birthday, why on earth would you think school would be a good option? This is hardly a common situation though, the few babies that survive being born 4 months premature are likely to be under specialist care from birth and be able to easily obtain a letter to say that they are delayed.

I Didn’t appreciate you were referring generally
Although I disagree everyone should and can chose jobs near schools.
Its not possible
We go to school to be educated and can take that further, if we work hard, we can follow a career in an area we are interested in and we enjoy. ( we meaning generally not me specifically )

If everyone can work hard towards enjoying their work then ultimately everyone’s life is better and that translates to home life too. So it’s a win for families both with and without kids.
Doing a job you are miserable in because you have to be near a school just takes that misery and resentment home. Then everyone is miserable.

Its also worth noting if you are educated in one area then look for a job in another you are going to struggle. So a phd adult in neuroscience isn’t going to cut it getting a job in a supermarket. They will neither be offered it nor stick at it even if they are.
So Whilst paying off Uni fees and at the same time being forced to retrain in something that might offer a job nearby in a shop or farming or something there’s also yet another expensive career break to factor in whilst also wondering how 45 years of national insurance will ever be paid just to get a state pension.
Jobs near where I live are mainly shop, pub and restaurant jobs. A solicitor on the high street, a gp surgery, cleaners, gardeners, farmers and warehouses and they are building 3500 more homes ( to add to the existing ) soon just half a mile away.
Meanwhile there are schools.
Where do all those thousands of parents work exactly
There aren’t thousands of jobs to go around so most commute into London.
Thats why the rail system has been improved and we now have a better, faster system.

So, no, working and living near home is not a reasonable working expectation for everyone.

Thinking - younger years
NT child pees pants once - child can change clothes & use school spares, then parents send in spares just in case. No physical contact required between school adult & child, child can do this alone.

Poops …. Can only think it’s diarrhea or similar. Yes, parents find & take sick child home.

Going back to staff training & job description - health & safety & safeguarding. “Untrained” & non-specialist staff are NOT going to be touching your child’s genitalia to clean them up. There is no staff going to do it and risk their job after child tells parent Mr/Miss X touched me there!

Yes but our children did start in state school as i mentioned upthread.
They were required to be toilet trained before starting and there was no requirement for us to be on hand, nearby, just in case.

We moved schools for various reasons. Nothing to do with issues here other than a more adaptable school day

This specific scenario worked for your family, and that's great. Check your privileges that you were able to do this - even though I appreciate the sacrifices you made.

You have a DH for a start, a partner to help shoulder the load, both financially and in terms of childcare. You have jobs that allow you both to work from home. If you hadn't been able or permitted to do that how would your situation have looked then? Sure, you didn't take the promotion but that's a different sacrifice to quitting your job and working potentially in a field you have no experience in and therefore at a lower wage - especially if you don't have the aforementioned back-up of another adult.

That’s exactly what I was thinking @whyamiawakestillitssolate . Yet so many on here, which is mainly women, think it’s OK to change your career, dump everything you’ve studied hard form so you are around on the off chance.

Is it any wonder people aren’t having kids these days,
No kids = no workers = no tax = no ni = no schools = no nhs = no benefits = no PIP = no nothing = etc etc etc

I can see the future MN threads already

I agree. The advice to 'just get another job' is akin to all the 'just leave' advice - as if it's that simple, financially and emotionally possible, and doesn't have real and compounding consequences to people's lives, now and well into the future. It's ignorant at best, and probably wildly damaging.

What about the “mainly women” working as teachers and TA, who are not in the career to clean up poop.

You working women think it’s their job to wipe your kids arse?
They are educators, not “personal care” staff

Maybe I need to be clearer. I mean it shouldn't be a massive ongoing battle to train your kids. If it is, they aren't ready. They should have enough language and understanding that they pick it up reasonably fast. Someone mentioned it took four days above. That shows that that child was clearly developmentally ready to train, perfect. Maybe for some it would be a few weeks.
I know a lot of people would like to think that children are blank slates ready to absorb whatever you teach them but that's not quite true (I suppose the fact that average development charts even exist means that the majority of parents have the just experience of the 'average' child which informs them) the individual child has to be developmentally ready to absorb whatever they are taught, or you may as well be trying to train a cat. I know this very well as a parent of a child with significant delays! (with a diagnosis.)
This will all be very guilt-inducing for many parents. I've seen tons of posts on here where training is done and dusted by late toddler age but the child starts having lots of accidents later on. But they certainly aren't lazy parents: the children will have something going on developmentally, environmentally or medically to cause it.
I'll echo previous posters when I say if a child of school age is still in pull-ups and has little awareness of this, they most likely aren't developmentally ready.

As I and others have mentioned upthread.
If that is a regular occurrence and not just a one off then that child simply isn’t ready for school
If it’s a clear health or SEN issue then there needs to be staff to deal with that.
If more people worked full time ( rather than hanging around waiting for a phone call from the school ) we would have the money to pay for those staff members in schools. As we have done in the past.

It’s a catch 22 situation
The only way to improve everything is to have more people paying into the system with everyone working full time to the best of their ability.

Do you think such a child is ready for school in general, in that case?
Surely not.

Teen DS1 has an EOTAS package rather than attending school but, yes, his HLTAs change him.

@ghostfacethriller

Mine were around 18 months -2, dgd was again the same age and dd worked and still managed to sort it out and nursery were supportive.

Surely by 4.5-5 most dc should have been able to achieve this apart from SNs but I think some of them will also manage to be as well so what is go wrong

Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't matter one iota - it's illegal for them not to go, if they are compulsory school age.

It doesn't matter if they're ready for school - they have to be there
It doesn't matter if the soiling is due to SN or abuse or laziness - that child STILL needs to be changed, in a timeframe that doesn't allow for parents to be called and arrive at the school. 30 minutes is too long.

It doesn't matter who you feel passionately is at fault here, or what age people would expect a child to be done, or how indignant you are that this falls to the (I agree, already stretched and overworked) teaching staff - it's the child that matters at the end of the day. Leaving them in soiled clothes is neglect - and if a school allows it, they are rightfully guilty of it. So yes, teachers / TA's / general school staff absolutely should be the ones to change children if they aren't potty trained.

Quite if I sent my child to school in dirty and soiled clothes it would raise red flags and be a safe guarding issue so surely this works both ways ?

@Gogogoquietly So yes, teachers / TA's / general school staff absolutely should be the ones to change children if they aren't potty trained

And if there is no other adult available what do you suggest? No one has addressed that.

So whilst that one teacher is potty training the children in the class, changing their nappies and wiping their bottoms, will they still be held solely accountable of the academic process and safety of the other 29 children in the class?

Really not for me to say. 4+ school entry rightly or wrongly IS the standard now (to be fair, from what a few posters have said here, it clearly was more common in the past in England than I had realised!) and I know from experience that a lot of childcare professionals I have encountered seem to think it odd if a child of 3+ isn't spending at least 15 hours a week in some sort of childcare setting, by now it's probably unusual if children of 2+ aren't. Most parents understandably go along with whatever is standard practice as who wants to think their child might be left behind? especially so if they are already showing a degree of delay.

I posted earlier fully aware of SEN and that trained/qualified TA are in place for a child who needs it. With parental permission. That TA, is not available for other kids. They are for the child with care plan. Often, the TA is supporting child educationally towards toiletting independence as part of education, not just being a nappy changer.

If child not ready for Independent toiletting, then there needs to be formal planning - even if parents are busy working. Of course one - off accidents happen, but parents cannot assume there are people available to clean up a mess. It’s not OK, for any staff to be cleaning up your child’s genitals without a specific guidance.
Pooping pants … illness, & parent pickup and 24-48 hours at home or just not ready - unless not sickness & child wears pull-up & can change pull-up and clean self.

No person should be putting their hands on your child’s privates without your knowledge. Without training & permission. Thats why there is policy.

Teachers & TA are educators, not personal care staff.

I suggest the child is changed promptly and compassionately. The child's right to being the priority will never change, whatever excuses you make.

There will always be an adult who can be 'made' available. I'm not talking about whether or not it's convenient. I'm not talking about whether or not it's disruptive. If there is literally zero capacity and no protocols for an adult to be mobilised for any incidences outside the norm, then the school cannot operate safely and can't be open.

You can talk about the funding and practicalities of employing additional adults to your heart's content - it doesn't change the reality of the situation today.

Currently, yes - if there is no TA or procedure in place to accommodate. Unfair and unsustainable certainly, but absolutely not permission to leave a child dirty.