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?!

It's highly unlikely a teacher would be moved away from teaching, a member of support staff would more likely to be asked to do it or someone who isn't teaching/slt/senco in that current moment if none were available.

It's not everyone else's problem if the parent is an hour away

No, they are not there. Even leaving a child dirty while you wait the (indeterminable) length of time for the parents to arrive is neglect.

I get what you're saying about the parents, but it simply isn't an argument for refusing to help a child in need.

Its because people like you will be like "oh, not UK - irrelevant.."

Learn to parent your own child and potty train them. Don't be a neglectful and uncaring parent passing on your responsibilities to school staff.

This.

Mental that adults who’ve somehow conceived, carried, birthed and raised a child to toddler age don’t have the brain power to realise that of course Pampers want you to keep buying their nappies because it makes them more money.

Absolute basics things like regular toothbrushing, appropriate bedtimes, toilet training, dressing and use of cutlery to eat are for the parents to manage. Not the NHS, nursery, school etc.

I haven't suggested disabled people don't access services. 🫣

Wales is in the UK…

No, it becomes the schools problem and they all quite rightly deal with it asap because they know it would be a huge safeguarding failure to decide it's not their problem and ignore it.

I think you over-estimate how many extra staff are just there waiting for something to do!

A child not being toilet trained doesn’t equal a parent being neglectful and uncaring. Nor does it mean a parent isn’t parenting.

The problem with this is: "Mental that adults who’ve somehow conceived, carried, birthed and raised a child to toddler age don’t have the brain power to realise that of course Pampers want you to keep buying their nappies because it makes them more money."

Educated people are having less kids, this is why we're seeing more uneducated parents and this is the consequences of that unfortunately. Educated people are also less likely to have loads of children. This could also be contributing why we're seeing more SEN.

OP is hardly in a position to be diagnosing or excluding SEN.

It really doesn't matter if it's SEN or parental neglect or a medical condition. OP still has a duty of care, being pissy about the technicalities of job descriptions suggests she should probably rethink her goals.

loooool ok whatever helps you sleep at night!

My daughter (5) has soiling accidents, it’s a medical issue though not a toilet training one. She has lost the feeling of needing to go from chronic long term constipation (school aware). She can have no accidents for a month and then might have accidents daily for a week. It’s not something I can train her out of. It’s not SEN and not from lack of parenting.

I’m often more than an hour away from school so not possible for me to change her, but at school she largely cleans herself up with a bit of support from staff. She’s still in Reception, by year 1 she won’t need help with it at all (the staff don’t clean her now but just help by getting her bag and making sure she washes her hands and bags soiled clothes up etc. They aren’t wiping her.) We always have a fully equipped bag of spares and wipes available.

All the staff are trained though as there are a couple of SEN kids with issues too.
It’s not unreasonable to refuse if not trained but unreasonable to work in primary and not to have to occasionally deal with shit.

The day the norovirus hit was an interesting one for staff, they all had to deal with that! Obviously the kids went home but it wiped out most of a school of 68 in 24hrs

It's also not an argument for forcing an untrained random TA to provide what may well be intimate care.

Exactly. These attitudes give me the rage. These poor neglected kids who have the most entitled, lazy parents. A child starting school that doesn't know about tooth brushing should be raising alarm bells.

Ok, sorry, just sounded like it.

I haven't had a child with continence problems. I'm just not ignorant to send and medical issues. Oh and I work in a school where cleaning bodily fluids 'isn't in my job description' but I'm human and so are the children we look after.

Where did I say Wales isn't in the UK? Those forums have UK/England then Wales in the forum username.

In the UK (whichever country within the UK someone is in), it isn’t lawful to refuse a mainstream education just because of a child’s toileting needs.

Then, do something about it.

It doesn’t. But you carry on believing your absolute nonsense.

I can see you edited your post after I replied, but yeah be a martyr and clean shit everyday. Not for me!

Well I disagree because if that's the case and no doubt the "need" will just increase, soon we won't have any teachers to teach children and where does that leave us? Perhaps you can fill the gap?