For refusing to change a 6 year old?

[Bernie6678]

So I’m 20 years old, at uni and working as a TA. I want to be a KS2 teacher. This is my first year working with children, I have no past experience, no children of my own etc. Posting here to get opinions from mums.

Anyway I’ve recently been moved from the year 5 classroom (which I loved) to year 1 and there’s multiple children who wet themselves and one of them actually poos himself quite regularly. No SEN. I understand the odd accident but this is happening a few times a week…
I’ve said I don’t feel comfortable changing children as this isn’t in my contract or job description and I’ve had no intimate care training. (Personally for minimum wage I’d rather not be dealing with poo and changing children).
I also think when a child wets themselves at this age they should be capable of going and changing themselves. We have lots of spare clothes and baby wipes here.

I’ve refused so the teacher or another TA changes the children.

Apparently the teacher has now complained about me because she’s having to do it when her previous TA would do it no questions asked. Previous TA has now had to go off on sick leave.

AIBU? They’re 6 years old?!

He has 2:1 support. TA's change him.

I mean accidents happen and you need to be sympathetic when they do. Dealing with the odd accident is part of the job role but this sounds like certain children are not properly toilet trained. The teacher needs to speak to the parents and frankly they should be coming in to deal with the mess.

Teachers aren’t carers, they are educators. The odd accident, vomiting, yes. But not daily caring. That is when people should be employed specifically for this and make the active choice for this to be their job. Teachers are not trained as carers, they are trained to educate.

Well my dh remember, s being taken off to be changed as he apparently he had a poo accident in reception ,he's 50,he's adamant they had the wrong child ,and he was blamed for for someone else's accident but regardless yes I guess it's always happened.

It's not the same, at all but you already know thst.

How rude. No, she shouldn’t be expected to do it as a teacher, and yes, she has every right to quote her job description the same as you do. Where do you draw the line under your ‘caring for children umbrella’?

Yep.

Under the Children Act 1989, teachers have a duty of care towards their pupils, traditionally referred to as ‘in loco parentis’. Legally, while not bound by parental responsibility, teachers must behave as any reasonable parent would do in promoting the welfare and safety of children in their care.

He didn't always have a EHCP because they take time, a long time and I doubt he'd get a EHCP if incontinence was his only issue but he does have other needs too.

He was still never left in his own faeces.

Though my comment was more general rather than towards OP since the attitude from some pp's seems to be that my son shouldn't be in school at all.

You'd rather pay for a specialist to be in school all day every day to assist for a short amounts of time and twiddling their thumbs the rest than utilise a TA? Cool, but then we'll be getting the 'why do so many kids have EHCPs' 'it's ridiculous one child has a 1-1 costing 35k a year for 1 hrs support a day' etc etc

Again, nope.

Are teachers also expected to feed kids who can’t manage cutlery? Do they clean their faces if they’ve got food on it?

What’s the actual expectation on them over and above teaching/academic guidance?

This is the issue with this comment, there is always the excluding children with medical conditions and SEN disclaimer. Medical conditions and SEN are a common occurance in classrooms.

Nah, you are being unreasonable.

SEN or not, if a child is uncomfortable, embarrassed and wet/soiled, you support in changing as their familiar adult. Doesn’t have to mean full on changing, just pass them the appropriate items and a nappy sack for soiled items and stand near by. I work as a TA in KS1 too and support NON-SEN children changing regularly should they have a little accident (wet OR soiled), as I see it as my duty of care and would much rather they feel safe and comfortable in our environment rather than feel SHAMED and know that a staff member is simply refusing to change them because they don’t agree with a child soiling themselves.

A lot of the time, that said child is so distracted or engrossed in their play or they are wanting the attention of being changed and having an adult close by, just for them. Both of which need addressing and the child should be having regular prompts, from yourself and the class teacher, to go and have a try on the toilet, using reward charts, stickers, whichever class reward system for parents is used… not shamed, that’s not ok.
@
If it was your child and they were non-SEN, toilet trained, but got distracted at school or wanted more attention so did this, you’d be furious if the staff member refused to change them.

Diabolical reply from a teacher. Unless you work in an SEN environment there shouldn’t be children in year 1 still pooing themselves and it should be on nobody else other than the parents to come and clean them up.

Over 30 years teaching primary/top infants and I have never changed or cleaned a single child with my own hands.

I have however taken many, many children into the bathroom and given instructions to clean and change themselves whilst I supervised.

In the case of a really explosive accident or repeated accidents parents were called in.

Nobody is going to leave a child sitting in their own mess, but this job has limits.

I don't think a child such as yours shouldn't be in school but I also think random teaching staff shouldn't be changing him on your behalf.

I’m appalled you think it’s ok for teachers or anyone but parents to be dealing with this! On the whole, with a few exceptions, it’s lazy parents that are creating this situation. All teachers should say NO, absolutely not. As others have said, get the parents to come in and deal with it.
its a fact that more and more children are coming to school, not toilet trained, unable to feed themselves and virtually non verbal, throw it back to the parents, they’ll soon get it sorted when they are inconvenienced!

This!!!!!

absolutely re-think your career choice if you’re not willing to deal with incidents like this.

Is it normal that kids take changes of clothes to school too? Just in their schoolbag?

I believe there used to be more of a welfare role at schools and a medical room but I definitely think this not being toilet trained for school is a relatively new phenomena

I made sure my ds was toilet trained as the playgroup was taking them at 2.5 and they wouldn’t be expected to change nappies

@Bernie6678 have you asked if you can have intimate care training?

Why isn't it? It's a school with small children. They will have accidents, they will throw up, they might have diarrhoea, some regurgitate food, they snot, cough and sneeze everywhere, they bleed. If someone goes into education thinking they will never have to deal with these things 'because it's not in the job description' they're deluding themselves.

are we advocating for kids being left sat in puke or covered in blood because it's not educations job to clean them as well?

None of this addresses the issue of having multiple 5 and 6 year olds in a class who aren’t potty trained. This didn’t used to be the case, so it cannot all be SEN, and it isn’t acceptable - it’s hard enough to attract people into teaching and TAing as it is.

In the case of the child soiling itself regularly, the parents need to be called into to do it, else what is their motivation to sort it out?

I think it also depends on how it was raised. Did you let the teacher know ahead of time that this wasn’t something you were willing to do or was it at the time that the child needed assistance?

No, we're suggesting parents parent.
Also, cleaning up sick is generally not intimate in the same way as nappy changing and cleaning up.