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.

My parents had no village, plenty of people in the 90s had no village, you couldn't start playgroup at 2yrs 9 months unless you were potty trained. No one was alienated because everyone just potty trained their kids. To me if you aren't potty training your kids then it's a sign of neglect.

That's very different to still being in nappies.

So telling the neglectful parents they can’t access schools will help the child how exactly?

Measles swept round Mum’s school ( 1965(?) and children were dropping like proverbial flies,
vomiting and she said there were plenty of staff including playground helpers to sit with the poorly children til their parent came to collect them.

If children are being neglected then SS should be involved, it shouldn't just be accepted that teachers will clean up their mess.

Agree.

But again there isn’t the funding in place for that to happen easily it takes time. What happens until then?

it seems those who think this is a good idea have very idealistic views on how things should happen with little idea of the real world issues. It’s much more complex but the child should never be the one made to feel at fault whatever the reason.

Well I don't think it's anybodies idea of a delightful activity I used uo be a nurse in dementia care,personal care wasent my favourite part of the job either ) but you can't neglect children.

I guess people are pushed in to toilet training their children?

My children were born in the nineties and the policy at that time was that children were not allowed to start playgroup unless they were toilet trained. In those days, playgroup was usually started from 2½-3 years of age. Nursery was for four year olds. The occasional puddle on the floor was expected, but this is totally different from not being trained in the first place and there was always a supply of spare pants (not nappies) for these little accidents. When I started school in September 1969, my reception teacher had nearly forty four and five year olds in her class. She had no adult help - TAs were decades in the future - but was an excellent, experienced teacher. She was firm but fair and given to reinforcing her expectations to parents at the school gates (as far as parents were allowed on school grounds). She would tell them that they need not worry about teaching their children to read and write as that was her job. Their job was to make sure that we could put on our coats and do up the buttons by ourselves as she didn't have the time to button up forty coats. I am sure that she could not have imagined a time where four and five year old children were still in nappies.

@Dramatic how many children actually start reception still in nappies though? Do you actually know the numbers?

Because no one actually does. One study claims 1 in 4 are not properly toilet trained, however that does not mean in nappies.

One in four children who commence school in the UK do so without being 'toilet trained' (able to use the toilet independently and manage all the steps involved in doing so safely and hygienically)

So how many children are we talking about here and which children specifically?

Well it's obviously a sizeable amount otherwise the policy wouldn't be needed.

Sorry, but some parents just CBA. With disposables and pull ups it’s just too easy to say, ‘Oh, he’s not ready,’ when a child is already coming up to 4.

In the days before disposables, when people had to wash terry nappies - often without an automatic washing machine, let alone a drier - it was almost unheard of for NT children not to be trained by around 2 1/2, and it was very often earlier.

Im in my early thirties and I remember the first couple of years of my school life. Children were shamed openly in front of other children and staff members by the teachers and ridiculed for soiling themselves. I luckily was fully toilet trained when starting school but had a huge phobia of toilets and remember becoming very distressed at the idea of having to use a toilet outside of our one at home. It sounds ridiculous as an adult but I still remember the fear and panic it used to cause me just being in a public toilet or school toilet block.

I remember once having an accident and being too scared to say anything because I didn’t want to be told off by a teacher and laughed at by the other children. I can’t have been the only one. I was a summer born baby so just 4 when I started school. I can’t speak for any other schools but that’s what happened at my primary school. It was horrific. My teenage son has SEN and has issues with going to the toilet and I can’t for a second imagine how heartless an adult can’t be to shame a child for being in such a vulnerable position and for all the emotions that come with it.

Then why aren't actual numbers published? Everyone is up in arms about this, but no one actually has real fact and numbers.

So you think people have sat round discussing this policy for an imaginary problem? Why would they bother if it wasn't an issue?

Do you really think it's easier to leave a child in nappies than toilet train them I mean really??
My Disabled child was 9/10 before he was toilet trained and I can tell you it's no fun changing the nappy of a an older child.

Oooh, The Mirror frothing about a problem that involves Feckless Parents…..hmm, why would they be using an imaginary problem…..gosh, let me think……

ERIC the bowel and bladder charity also say there is a massive sea change in how children are reared now- and toilet training is now left as late as 3 /4 years.

Comfy disposables too make it less nasty to poo in a nappy rather than seeking the potty .

https://eric.org.uk/why-are-children-potty-training-later/#:~:text=Changes%20to%20family%20life,in%20more%20than%20one%20home.

Yeah but that was before the equality act and they realised that it was discrimination to not allow a child in nappies to attend school,nursery etc.

DS wasn't diagnosed as autistic until 9. With hindsight between speech delays, multiple food allergies and sensory issues, our "late" toilet training at 3 actually wasn't bad going. We had a couple of normal range incidents in yR, but with dyspraxia, his dexterity at independence skills wasn't the best.

By the juniors years and now in secondary he tries his best to avoid school toilets. Fortunately this doesn't have continence consequences.

My concern is that there will be children at that age with undiagnosed, relevant SENs/ health needs involved that are discriminated against.

I couldn't have just walked out of work. Logistically between communications and cover, I was an hour away. Often there was no other contact avaliable. That's a long time to leave a child in that condition.
As it happens, DS's yR was the final year that I managed a work life balance without severely compromising his needs/ wellbeing. It's already tough working when you have a child with (undiagnosed) additional needs.

The real issue is a catalogue of problems of the provision of support (including diagnosis) to families and schools. There's a major lack of SEN provision; it's full of the most severe needs, so so many SEN children are sent to fail in under-resourced mainstream schools, and going longer and longer without diagnosis and appropriate support.

Where families have a lack skills, the loss of Sure Start and reduction of access to services like health visitors has made it harder to access quality support. Where families don't want to engage at all, it's difficult to get productive outcomes, but that's often not the issue.

I specifically said ‘NT’ children, but I should have included any ‘disabled’. Sorry.

I can not help a child who has soiled because I have Crohn's disease and have to be careful around poo.

Also in many schools because of safeguarding it actually takes two members of staff to deal with personal care issues.

It might vary by school/ LA but when I taught in Wales the children started full time school at 3 and I thought this was common in the Foundation Phase. At my school our foundation phase classroom had nursery aged and reception aged children both being taught fulltime within the same classroom. In the bigger neighbouring school the nursery aged children and reception aged children were in different classes but still all part of the main school. It is a different system to England, almost all children started fulltime at school aged 3 and they then had a place at the school for the rest of their schooling, it wasn’t like in England where a nursery place doesn’t guarantee a school place. I did only teach in Wales for a year though so not completely familiar with the system, maybe it isn’t the same across all of Wales but it has been common amongst my friends/ family still in Wales that their children have started full time school aged 3.

That'waaent my point ,my point was wether the child has disabilities or not it's far easier on the parent if they are toilet trained, then changing. An older child,so I dont know why any parent would leave a child in nappies because they CBA to toilet train.