Is this the norm, school nurseries

[Hollies98]

I met up with a friend to do the school run. Her dc is in the school now nursery. Age 3 and a half .. she was running round lifting her school dress and her nappy was that low, looked as if it’d been on all day. Is this the norm? are schools not required to change nappies?

Surely she needs to be out of nappies with school approaching in September… unless medically needed.

If she was still in a nappy she wouldn’t have been able to attend any school nursery that I know, unless she had specific needs.

Sounds odd to me. Mine have gone to school nursery from 2. Nappies changed up until they potty trained at 3 or thereabouts.

No, school nursery should help her to change out of it or even better, be in the process of toilet training and wearing knickers/underpants.

School nursery shouldn’t have children wearing nappies unless every effort has been made, medical advice has been sought etc.

Our local school nursery doesn't take children in nappies. They start age 3.

I know others will come on but sschool nurseries are not allowed to refuse to have children who are not toilet trained. Don’t know about private schools though…. It seems it’s not uncommon these days for ND children to be in nappies when they start school. I know the school I taught at 15 years ago was told non toilet trained children had to be admitted. Strangely the nursery nurses managed to get most oft hem trained pretty quickly.

School nursery should support them to change their own pull up, but really shouldn’t even need to do that at 3 and a half with no other SEN. Saying that, pull ups are a huge part of the problem of so many children being late to toilet train nowadays, but that’s not the staffs fault.

My son is at a school nursery and they take them from 2. He started at 3 and was out of nappies but they definitely do nappy changes as it was mentioned when we did the welcome meeting.

My son’s nursery won’t accept them if they’re not toilet trained unless they have significant SEN.

3.5 year olds do big wees, if she was changed after lunch she will probably need changing again.

They might not be allowed to refuse them, but they will refuse to change them themselves, they are not allowed to remove clothing. When my eldest dd was 3 and in nursery she’d fallen on a stool and injured her bum. I got called in to see if she was injured as the school wasn’t allowed to even look. In our school nurseries they will phone the parents to come in to change nappies.

A nappy at three and a half?

Of course they are allowed to, they choose not to.

In England a school will not refuse to change a child’s nappy. This is absolutely untrue. It’s also not true that staff can’t remove clothing.

This is not legal in England.

if the nursery is in England they are breaking the law.

They should have changed it. My son is attending one soon and it does say they will help with potty training. I don't think they can refuse any non potty trained children as that means all SEN kids wouldn't be able to attend. I am not convinced my son will be properly trained before he starts due to some SEN.

Well most nurseries in England are apparently breaking the law then. I have children ranging from 6 to 18, they’ve gone through many nurseries between them, not one will change a 3 year olds nappy

A quick google says you are wrong and have been for a while. Parents in schools in England can and will be called in to change their child’s nappies

I work with over 30 nurseries and not one of them refuses to take children in nappies.

That is schools. What about preschools?

No. It is against the Disability Discrimination Act both to refuse to admit a child in nappies AND to require a parent to come to change them (because in both cases you are treating a child who may have a disability differently from one who does not).

That’s been the case for going on 20 years now; really surprised it’s still not universally acknowledged.

It’s the ones attached to schools.

ERIC is a good source of information. https://eric.org.uk/information/school-toilet-policy/

While a school (note not a nursery) can write a changing policy that requires a parent, it is not considered good practice and I suspect that if a parent pushed the DDA angle, most schools under most circumstances would have to have an extremely good reason (not ‘it’s our policy’) to argue that it was not discrimination.

I work with both private and school nurseries. None of them refuses to children in nappies. They are not allowed to.