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.

Accidents ftom time to time is nowhere near the same as kids starting school in nappies.

Even at 3 or 4 I can't recall any of my peers having accidents with soiling. The odd wet accident is inevitable, especially in colder weather. A pair of wet pants is easily dealt with. A poo filled nappy or underwear is not.

I think this would be open to interpretation. If teachers have been told not to change DC, then I would imagine they are not going to change a DC that has wet themselves. Otherwise the parents of DC not potty trained will just send their DC in pants and let the school deal with it.

Hopefully a degree of common sense would be used. A child who wets once eg in cold weather is totally different to a child with continence issues needing changed regularly.

@AVeryCovidChristmas

But not to be involved in changing nappies

People have been saying that only children with severe special needs should still be in nappies when they start school. Nobody seems to agree on how severe my son's special needs are but he sat up without support at 16 months, walked at 2.5 years. We managed to crack toilet training in the Easter holidays when he was in reception so 4 years 10 months. He learned to write his name aged 8 years and learned to ride a bike aged nearly 11 years. So toilet trained roughly in line with the rest of his development. Of course some children will have a spiky profile, like my youngest son who can do the 13, 14 and 15 times table in his head but is emotionally delayed by 7 years.

Not sure what it is you mean sorry. If your first son had delayed educational development, was his teaching not tailored towards that? The same would apply to your other one if his needs are that he has the emotional capacity of a toddler when entering primary 4. In which case support for his needs should be in place. The teacher shouldn't be required to assist with what is far below typical. The rest of the class deserve better.

Exactly, many children will get an occasional (once a week or less) wet knickers where they were so absorbed in what they were playing that they didn't quite make it to the bathroom on time.
In our school there is a box of spare knickers and little bags in each cubicle, and most children just get a dry pair and put their wet pair in a bag and then in their tray for hometime. By half way through reception they have learnt to go when first feel need rather than waiting until desperate, and there are very few accidents in otherwise toilet trained children, and I dont think any in year 1 this term.
But there were 5 who started reception in nappies this year (only 1 last year who had a specific medical need we already knew about so could plan for), only 2 of whom informed staff beforehand, the other 3 were planning on panic last minute toilet training over the summer and then 'forgot' to say that they 'forgot' to toilet train them.

Sorry, was on mumsnet while also watching a really boring video on YouTube the younger 2 were watching to double check it was appropriate. They've watched that channel loads of times and it's all been fine but I like to check. So I forgot to check what I was writing and missed a bit.

I was meaning that there were some posters who were saying that children with SEN should still be toilet trained before they are old enough to be at school. Unless severe SEN. I can't remember if they said that a child with severe SEN would be in special school or at least have their own TA or not.

I was saying that my 11 year old toilet trained part way through reception, roughly in line with the rest of his development and around the time that I thought he would be dry in the day (we are still working on night time). I don't think he would count as severe SEN, his learning disabilities are moderate. In reception when he was in nappies he was in mainstream without a 1 to 1 TA. He had high needs funding from preschool to year 3 and then he had an ehcp. He was changed by one of the class TA's, they had 2 class TA's in reception as there was my ds who got high needs funding and several dc on pupil premium. Now in secondary school he has enough funding on his ehcp to have 1-2 support from a TA, who supports him and another boy in his tutor group.

My youngest, now aged 10 has never had any funding at all until this year when he got his ehcp. The teacher and class TA were struggling enormously trying to make sure that ds was safe and learning something. They still are struggling really.

My main point is that just because a child has SEN or a diagnosed medical problem, it still doesn't mean they are in special needs school, or even get support in a mainstream class.

Before my own children started school, I always assumed that while children with conditions like dyslexia and adhd would be taught in mainstream school with support, I thought that children still in nappies in reception would mostly be in special needs school. But it turned out that I was very wrong. there are so many children not getting the support they need at school. And it's not fair on the child, the teacher or the rest of the class.

@elliejjtiny We have had almost the same history as you, continence alongside moderate learning difficulties. Like you (before I had kids) I assumed children like DS would have perhaps been in a specialist school. His needs emerged gradually, sort of a year at a time, last few in the last year, with now 7 diagnoses to his name. He's a teen now. With retrospect perhaps a special school was what we should have fought for but there's no certainty we would have won a tribunal (for non-SEND parents, yes this is what it often comes down to, a judge and panel weighing up the evidence for and against). As we are rural. there was also no guarantee we would have found somewhere within an hour's travel. So he attended local schools. They managed his continence by and large. Obviously with our support (not going in to change, we work), and advice from continence services and then consultant. It's been a long haul. I bet there are plenty like him though. Caught in the middle.

I can't comment on whether lazy parents are leaving it to nursery or school to toilet train their children. It's possible, though I've never known any parents who have done this - and being a small community we are from all walks of life.

Only want to say that it's not always a cut and dried scenario.

In my LEA we have four special school ,s one of the primary and one of the secondary are for children with moderate to severe learning disabilities
And the other primary and secondary school are for children with severe to profound learning disabilities
We also have several autism hubs
The provision of SEND across the UK varies massively

Gosh, I'd genuinely love to know what part if the country you're in.
I might move there. No even being sarcastic. I would.

I'm not doubting that it may well be patchy, and some LA's are worse than others (they are not known as LEA's now, that is an obsolete term).

However it is well known that SEND provision in England is insufficient to the amount of need. There is a well recognised SEND crisis in England, reported in the national press, acknowledged by the current government. So many specialist schools closed down, now it tends to be independent provision which costs a lot.

The SEND boards and FB pages are overflowing with parents at their wit's end.

I don't know if you were suggesting where I live is an anomaly but, with almost a decade's experience on the coal face, I can assure you it's not.

No not at all I know there's a,huge disparity in area,s
What I will although all four special schools have doubled in capacity over the past 10 or 15 years so there is clearly a need

Sorry. That was meant to read I was NOT being sarcastic!

I am truly glad if there are at least some LA's out there trying to tackle the situation. Sadly, ours isn't one of them.

Most tend to do a smoke and mirrors routine with plenty of gas lighting thrown in for good measure.

Needs? We see no needs. If we see no needs, we don't need to pay for any provision ...needs simply don't exist if we just say la la la and ignore your specialist reports. Oh what's that, you want to join the enormous queue for tribunal? Be our guest. It'll take a year though. Even after that we'll mess you about and say we can't find the provision the judge ordered. You cannot make it up, what goes on day after day.

Awful situation for children, parents and schools.

Rant over. As you were.

Definitely a need.
In our borough we have a primary and a secondary for complex physical and learning needs
A primary and secondary for moderate physical and/or learning needs
2 primaries and 1 secondary for higher need ASD
2 primaries and 1 secondary for moderate learning needs with no or minimal physical needs
Several 'hubs' for hearing or visual impairment, mild ASD, SEMH.

So that's 10 special schools, at least 10 hubs, all of whom have doubled capacity by setting up satellite sites and or building extra classrooms over past 5 years.

And we still have at least 500 children in borough officially waiting for a specialist place, and many others where we as HCP's think they should have specialist place but are in mainstream.

There has been such an explosion of need over past 5 years for some reason. I think we have more special schools than most areas but still nowhere near enough!

Actually I forgot we also have a few PRU,s too .

@x2boys, as l posted earlier, I think the exponential rise in the numbers of children with special needs is exactly related to the numbers of babies born extremely early and capable of survival these days, thanks to greater knowledge and technology. When my children were born in the nineties, the survival rate of babies born before thirty weeks was still low, but nowadays we occaisonally hear of very tiny babies born at 23 weeks' gestation. Some very premature babies survive with seemingly no side effects, but far more are left with lifelong disabilities in one form or another. My oldest son, born in 1991, is autistic and went to a special school. It was the best place for him, but these days he would not have had a chance of being accepted because of the higher needs of others. There were two boys who were at his school and two years above him. Both had been born at 28 weeks and both had spent the first nine months side by side in special care at hospital. One of them was the first baby allowed home from that hospital while still on oxygen. Both boys also had older parents. There were a number of children at my son's school who had been born prematurely, sadly.

… and the shockingly high number of children born from first cousin marriages in families with long history of first cousin marriages. Former colleague at a bank, female with masters level education, in arranged marriage to first cousin (mothers are sisters). No idea fathers level of relatedness to the mum, but from same small village as mother.

Three boy children, all born with genetic deafness, all had cochlear implants, and special schooling for learning needs. Neither parent had hearing loss, but clearly recessive gene.

They say if marry first cousins then everyone gets along. How nice.

@Bloonket first cousin marriages were common in this country in rural areas. One first cousin marriage does not carry much increased risk, the risk comes from a history of first, second and third cousin marriages throughout a bloodline.

Do, you support first cousin marriage because “not much increased risk” of child suffering from recessive chromosome disorders?
If you care about child health, you would oppose it - why not advise mums to smoke, use street drugs, drink, not take folic acid? As “not much increased risk” - right?

In this new study, researchers combined summarised data from the Deciphering Developmental Disorders (DDD) study4 and GeneDx cohorts to identify individuals with similar genetic backgrounds, totalling 29,745 families. Over 20 per cent of these families were from mostly non-European ancestries. Analysing this large dataset provided more insight, especially for smaller and less-studied groups.
The team found the number of patients affected by recessive genetic variants varied greatly between different ancestry groups, ranging from two to 19 per cent of cases. This variation is strongly linked to the prevalence of unions between close relatives – consanguinity – in these groups.

www.sanger.ac.uk/news_item/most-new-recessive-developmental-disorder-diagnoses-lie-within-known-genes/

With increased numbers of newcomers from cultures with first cousin marriages, there will be increased numbers of children born requiring additional medical and educational support, possibly long care disability support. Why? To keep “it” in the family?

I was going to say this. As a rough estimate, at least a quarter the children on my caseload as a paediatric physio are a result of intermarriage, it's a question we ask at their first assessment. Another quarter (at least) were born abroad in third world/war torn countries where antenatal care is very limited so birth complications are more frequent. There is another chunk who are brain damaged due to parental action/inaction (near drownings, vaccine preventable diseases in unvaccinated children by choice).

Only a third max would be type of children who I would have had on my caseload 15 years ago when first qualified, and it's horrible to know that the suffering so many of these children go through could be prevented by better antenatal care and different choices by parents around marriage, vaccination and birth control.

I live in area were there is a large ethnic minority where interfamililal marriage is common which does account towards tge huge rise in children with severe disabilities needing a special school
As a one off ( although it's something I couldn't do ) marriage between two first cousins where they have children the children would probably be OK it's when generation after generation of first cousins marry and have children problems arose.

After finally reading the entire discussion I want to ask a question, if it's not a severe case, can a child with SEND be potty trained? From what I understand they can.

With that in mind I would like to point out a few things:

Medicine advanced so nowadays we not only recognize more case as being SEND, but we identify them more easily too.

Children with SEND always existed, they're not something new, in the past there would be many but we simply wouldn't recognize as such, so unless it was clearly a severe case didn't they get potty trained like everyone else?

I say that because with the way some people focus on the child having SEND it sounds like SEND is treated as a "get out of potty training" card, which really doesn't make sense since not all SEND cases would be severe as far as I understand it.

Another thing, wouldn't severe cases of SEND be put in special schools and such? Which means children with non severe SEND were treated like everyone else in public school.

I would also like to point out something I don't think anybody mentioned, if a child is potty trained and soil themselves that's an accident right? If the child is not trained and soil themselves then that isn't an accident, it's just the child doing what they do cause they're not trained.

With that in mind I would like to point out another thing, it's not a teacher job to change nappies but they still do it cause it's generally an accident once in a while plus it's the right thing to do, but if the child is not potty trained then it won't be the rare accidents, they might soil themselves multiple times a day.

Is it neglect if the teacher don't change a nappy? Arguably yes, but surveys point that there's more and more children that are not potty trained at all and vast majority of teachers don't have help.

So if a class has 30 children, 5 or more are not potty trained, how much time will lthe teacher waste changing nappies? An accident once in a while is a thing, but the more non trained child they need to deal with the less time they can teach, the less time they can pay attention to the other children, that is by definition neglect to all the other children.

Schools don't have resources to put help in every single classroom.

Surveys point that some parents potty train their children late cause they wait for when the child is ready, it also points that more and more parents think the school should potty train children, among other things that are parents duty.

Some wait for when they think the child is ready as to not "abuse" them or affect their self-steem or whatever excuse they make, but decades ago didn't pretty much all of us get potty trained around 2 to 3? Didn't our parents? Our grandparents? Did we get low self-steem from that? Did we get traumatized? No.

Didn't even children with learning disabilities get potty trained around that age out of necessity? With only severe cases the training failing?

Parents who think it's the school job to do that are literally the definition of lazy and incompetent.

Pretty much everything points to it being a failure of the parents first and foremost, trying to force the school to do it won't fix it cause more and more parents are not doing their job if we go by surveys and such.

Some here keep basically saying "b-but the children!", yeah, the children not potty trained will suffer and that is arguably wrong, but if the school and goverment don't force parents to do their job then all the other children will suffer because of a few.

It's simple math and cold equation, either the minimum of children suffer due to their parents choices or all children suffer because the school is forced to focus on the children that is not potty trained.

Screaming and whining over the children who will suffer is worthless if you can't give an actual solution for this issue, the easiest and most practical solution is force parents to do their job since everything points to being the parent fault to begin with.

And honestly, all children should be potty trained for school unless they have a special situation, anything else is pure incompetence and negligence from the parents.

Well of course some children with learning disabilities can be toilet trained as they range from mild to profound they are often delayed though even thos with Milder learning disabilities .

But aren't children with mild and especially profound learning disabities the minority?

Don't many parents at times put those in private schools and such?

Depending on the case don't many parents get papers that proves their childrens need special care? Which means the school has to deal with their necessities?

My point is two things:

That decades ago many children which nowadays we consider as having learning disability got potty trained, was it harder in many cases? Most likely, but parents still did it anyway unless the case was clearly severe, which means these cases didn't even go to public school to begin with, so it was never a public school problem.

And that the issue isn't children with learning difficulties or SEND, but healthy children who parents aren't potty training for a reason or another, generally because they wait for the children to be "ready" or think the school should do it.

Children with SEND getting help was never into question and was never going to stop, the problem is the healthy children that aren't getting potty trained.

Cause really, although cases of SEND and learning disability definitely did rise over the decades, that's just because our understand of it changed, many of them are light enough that these children could be potty trained, even if it took more work and time.

There's only two possibitilies for this whole situation, everything points to being a parent problem, the alternative is that not only SEND and learning disabilites cases are growing, but that they're severe enough that the children can't be potty trained.

The second option is extremely unlikely because really, if that was the case there would probably be panic and people demanding answers on why so many children are being born with severe disabilities when that wasn't the case decades ago.