Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

For refusing to change a 6 year old?

1000 replies

Bernie6678 · 02/07/2025 19:48

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?!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
9
Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 00:31

Theamin · 03/07/2025 00:29

Just they they wouldn't do it themselves. And they can't be made to. And the parents should come in to do it...

You're right, no one's suggesting that at all.

Correct. Nobody has suggested this.

cryptide · 03/07/2025 00:31

And EHCPs only set out the statutory entitlement of a child/obligation of a school to provide appropriate provision. It doesn't automatically provide funding for that. It has to be applied for separately and isn't guaranteed.

Not true. Local authorities have an absolute duty to secure special educational provision set out in 'EHCPs, which includes providing adequate funding. Local authorities who require schools to apply for funding for support specified in EHCPs are acting unlawfully and can and should be taken to court by way of judicial review.

cryptide · 03/07/2025 00:34

intrepidpanda · 02/07/2025 23:04

I dontbthink it matters if they are SEN of not
If any 6 year old, SEN or not, is pooing themselves, they are not ready for mainstream school.

So what do you suggest should happen to them given the shortage of specialist school places?

Theamin · 03/07/2025 00:35

Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 00:31

Correct. Nobody has suggested this.

Oh. Who's doing it then?

Kirbert2 · 03/07/2025 00:37

cryptide · 03/07/2025 00:34

So what do you suggest should happen to them given the shortage of specialist school places?

Even if there wasn't a shortage, a special school isn't going to accept a child just because they are incontinent without any other development delays, LD's etc.

My son is perfectly capable of mainstream school despite his incontinence.

Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 00:37

cryptide · 03/07/2025 00:34

So what do you suggest should happen to them given the shortage of specialist school places?

That's a far bigger question isn't it? She's hardly going to have the answer to all society ills on a case by case basis.

But she is absolutely 100 percent correct that a child who is shitting and pissing themselves regularly is not ready for mainstream school. It's not remotely controversial and until 5 minutes ago nobody would have disagreed.

In fact, nobody disagrees anyway, in real life, and only on this ridiculous site are we supposed to pretend wiping shitty and pissy arses of any age when you are minimum wage employee with no training or safeguarding in place and where you have not explicitly agreed to the job of wiping shitty and pissy arses, is even a thing.

Caduz · 03/07/2025 00:43

Bernie6678 · 02/07/2025 20:04

If this was a kid in my class when I’m a teacher I’d be looking more into why on earth this is happening and working with the parents on an solution, instead of passing it onto a TA.

Unfortunately it’s an epidemic in the Uk post pandemic. So many parents aren’t toilet training their children! I am so glad it wasn’t a thing when I did TA work pre-2016 because ain’t no way I’d be changing nappies for 6 year olds.

This country needs to get a grip. Bring back sure start centres or whatever they need to do, because it’s getting out of hand how some parents are just not parenting! And it’s been normalised partly because there’s not enough pushback from most schools. If more staff took your stance maybe things would have to change

www.theguardian.com/education/2024/feb/28/one-in-four-school-starters-in-england-and-wales-not-toilet-trained-say-teachers

NeedZzzzzssss · 03/07/2025 00:48

Kirbert2 · 03/07/2025 00:37

Even if there wasn't a shortage, a special school isn't going to accept a child just because they are incontinent without any other development delays, LD's etc.

My son is perfectly capable of mainstream school despite his incontinence.

Besides incontinence, is he physically disabled? Because I'm assuming that case he'd be able to clean himself which is quite a different scenario from what OP is facing?

Maturedmama · 03/07/2025 00:53

i am so confused! I have been with hubby since I was 19 yrs now 20 yr on we are still together and I don’t know how 🫣 the relationship has been volatile to say the least he has anger issues and has bruised me many time by throwing things I have 2 older kids and 2 younger kids my older kids have said he has given them anxiety and yet I am still here!! I am more vocal now of what I won’t accept but episodes do still happen😭 he has the same angry outburst at work not just in the home he is handy for fixing things and bringing home money i dont have any other family but not sure why i have stayed? He can be great but has no patience 😩 so Evan most days out end up with him huffing at somthing that shouldn’t be a issue I find now when he is being unreasonable I just walk away but it’s making me hate him as a person I am just so confused with my life my feeling and have no one to vent to or offer advice 😭

Kirbert2 · 03/07/2025 00:54

NeedZzzzzssss · 03/07/2025 00:48

Besides incontinence, is he physically disabled? Because I'm assuming that case he'd be able to clean himself which is quite a different scenario from what OP is facing?

He is physically disabled and can't change himself. He's also older than the child in the OP.

He isn't autistic, has no LD's and no behavioural issues so would have no chance of any special school. He manages well at mainstream school with the support he gets.

NeedZzzzzssss · 03/07/2025 00:55

Caduz · 03/07/2025 00:43

Unfortunately it’s an epidemic in the Uk post pandemic. So many parents aren’t toilet training their children! I am so glad it wasn’t a thing when I did TA work pre-2016 because ain’t no way I’d be changing nappies for 6 year olds.

This country needs to get a grip. Bring back sure start centres or whatever they need to do, because it’s getting out of hand how some parents are just not parenting! And it’s been normalised partly because there’s not enough pushback from most schools. If more staff took your stance maybe things would have to change

www.theguardian.com/education/2024/feb/28/one-in-four-school-starters-in-england-and-wales-not-toilet-trained-say-teachers

I think it's due to nursery too, many parents don't do much of anything now when some kids spend most of their waking hours there. It's also entitlement and different standards, I've seen posts on here before where a parent is late to start toilet training and other posters have told them not to worry as they will sort it out at school. Zero care, and zero responsibility. It's neglect, but they don't seem to see it.

Then of course you have posts complaining why schools don't teach more basic things instead of maths 🥴

Perhaps schools need to have a dedicated classroom for these children, PP has posted it is now 1 in 4 who are starting school without being toilet trained so it's not like there will be a shortage of children. Maybe then parents will be incentivised to step up, although I suspect not. It would be interesting to see comparisons of these basic skill levels in other countries, especially non-Western ones

Yoodle50 · 03/07/2025 00:56

FMLLLLL · 03/07/2025 00:27

This is the schools responsibility to deal with. As you say it isn’t in a TA standard job description to change children, so you don’t have to do it.
unless you are a Clinical Psychologist and have done a full Neurodevelopmental Assessment though, you can’t know if they have SEN. Plus, unless you’re a Gastro expert and have scanned or xray’d the child you can’t know there isn’t a medical reason for it. It’s very common for GP’s to be useless at treating this issue and refuse to refer to experts to get it dealt with. So it may be the poo parents are doing there best.
The posters saying school should ring the parents each time are very wrong. Legally the school have a responsibility to provide for the child’s needs and one of those needs is helping them change. If they need to employ staff specifically for that role then they need to apply to the LA for the funding to do that.

I think the feeling among many that it shouldn't be. You bring a life into this world then why shouldnt you be responsible or pay for the additional help it needs (not speaking about you specifically) your post doesn't make sense, you say the TA isn't responsible or the parents or the Teachers but the Schools. It's in no ones job description but the parents.

NeedZzzzzssss · 03/07/2025 00:58

Yoodle50 · 03/07/2025 00:56

I think the feeling among many that it shouldn't be. You bring a life into this world then why shouldnt you be responsible or pay for the additional help it needs (not speaking about you specifically) your post doesn't make sense, you say the TA isn't responsible or the parents or the Teachers but the Schools. It's in no ones job description but the parents.

Agree, this thread has made me even less sympathetic, some of the comments which are quite frankly crazy but show what some people think. Depressing AF!!

Yoodle50 · 03/07/2025 01:10

NeedZzzzzssss · 03/07/2025 00:58

Agree, this thread has made me even less sympathetic, some of the comments which are quite frankly crazy but show what some people think. Depressing AF!!

totally spoilt and entitled, we are extremely fortunate to have an education system the way we do. We pay taxes for our children to receive an education and that should be all a school is responsible for at the end of day. You wonder what the future holds when the government tells us more cuts are coming and the majority looses out.

Lucee1 · 03/07/2025 01:14

My DD is 6 in a few weeks time and is Y1. She would definitely be able to sort herself if this happened at school. Agree could be undiagnosed SEN also.

However, I will say, she has told me that some children in her class do have accidents. She said the teacher says they have to wait until break/lunch to go to the toilet. And that has resulted in accidents. And she has also said the toilets are always dirty/flooded. So children probably avoid using them. That might be different in your school though

FMLLLLL · 03/07/2025 01:14

Yoodle50 · 03/07/2025 00:56

I think the feeling among many that it shouldn't be. You bring a life into this world then why shouldnt you be responsible or pay for the additional help it needs (not speaking about you specifically) your post doesn't make sense, you say the TA isn't responsible or the parents or the Teachers but the Schools. It's in no ones job description but the parents.

Why shouldn’t it be the school’s responsibility? They are responsible for employing someone to do it and that person would have it in their job description. If you had a child with a medical condition do you really think it would be ok for you to have to give up your job, to be on call to go into school at a moments notice?

Yoodle50 · 03/07/2025 01:16

FMLLLLL · 03/07/2025 01:14

Why shouldn’t it be the school’s responsibility? They are responsible for employing someone to do it and that person would have it in their job description. If you had a child with a medical condition do you really think it would be ok for you to have to give up your job, to be on call to go into school at a moments notice?

Because it's a drain and quite frankly when EHCP'S cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds and in some cases hundreds of thousands of pounds the government would be better off paying you to sit on your ass on standby

Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 01:17

@Theamin Whoever has agreed to the job of wiping shitty and pissy arses and cleaning shitty and pissy clothes, who has that specifically in their job description, has agreed to it and has been trained for it with safeguarding concerns discussed and a plan in place.

Not the school cleaners, canteen workers, groundsmen, head teachers or anybody else who is not specifically trained for this has agreed to it and has it in their job description.

Not sure why people are pretending to believe it is a regular TA job to wipe shitty and pissy arses - but obviously, it's not.

Trying2bMindful · 03/07/2025 01:18

Jimmyneutronsforehead · 02/07/2025 23:22

It isn't really that simple though.

When a child becomes compulsory school age, you have the option to elect them into education, or electively home educate.

Many children with toileting issues will have some sort of SEN, and others will have medical conditions, and some will have both.

When you electively home educate, you basically strip the local authority of their obligation to find suitable education for your child, which is really important to note if your child does have SEN and might require specialist provision.

Once you electively home educate, it's extremely difficult to get your child into specialist provision, which is still extremely difficult when they're in a mainstream setting anyway, but it is even moreso when they are electively home educated.

You can't just electively home educate because your child is incontinent and then expect the LA to find them a place in a specialist school because you cannot cater to their primary need at home.

This leaves many parents of SEN children or children with significant medical need stuck in a trap of sending their children to a mainstream setting that we know cannot cater to their needs because we're stuck playing a vicious game of cat and mouse chasing our tails with the LA to get needs assessments done, apply for EHCPs, fight for specialist provision, getting rejected, applying for emergency reviews, getting rejected again, going to panel, going to mediation, going to tribunal and this is a timely and stressful process, during which time our children aren't getting the support that they need to do any learning, and they're also getting shamed for having bowel and bladder issues beyond their control.

It's also very judgemental to notice that the same children that cannot read or write are the ones having toileting issues, but attribute that solely to poor parenting, when it's actually a very strong indicator of developmental delays.

I'll use me and my son as an example. He's been read to every single day of his life, we have reading hour where we go through phonics, I spend a fortune on additional learning resources, we've been toilet training since he was 18 months old, he's 6 now, we've been through speech and language 3 times, we've had occupational therapy involved twice, we've had the health visitor involved for all of his delays with no resolution, he's about to resit reception for the third year because he has not been able to make any academic progress, but if you talked to him you'd probably just see him as a sharp, but distractable young boy. You'd never know he has a significant speech delay because he can now speak, but it still impacts his comprehension and how he processes the world around him. He can't read or write. He's terrible at phonics. I've called ERIC so many times, I've done their SEN child webinars, I've quit my job to provide additional resources at home, I plan all our outings to make them as play based and educational as possible to meet him at a place where he can learn. I can't stress enough just how much additional work I put in as a parent to try and keep my child as close to his peers as possible, but you would probably see me as a workshy dosser who parents lazily because my child is still in pullups. Parents like me are a dime a dozen. You just don't know what it is that we're going through.

Our children still deserve an education and to be integrated into society despite their medical needs. They should not be kept at home, under lock and key.

Instead there should be adequate provision in schools by law to cater to these needs at the bare minimum to avoid neglect.

You're so right the cost of nappies is ridiculous. Have you seen the price of size 7 nappies? We have had babies born into the family and fully toilet trained while I'm still wiping my sons bum because he cannot do it himself. It's disheartening that he has not reached those milestones that I see others come and do in a fraction of his small life. I wish I was lazy, but it's so taxing having to change your child for 6 consecutive years. It isn't at all what you expect when you pee on that little stick, and get those 2 beautiful lines and start imagining your wonderful future together as a family. I can't imagine anyone doing this because they're lazy. This is not the lazy option.

💯

Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 01:19

Trying2bMindful · 03/07/2025 01:18

💯

None of this is relevant to the OP's question though.

She is 100 percent correct she is not responsible for cleaning shitty and pissy arses or shitty and pissy clothes unless it is specifically in her job description with training and safeguarding in place.

Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 01:24

When my son was going through school, he had some challenges. One of the words I calmly suggested the school "should" remove from their correspondence was "should".

Should means nothing, it's a wishful daydream. Work with reality. What you think people "should" do is not what they are going to do. If you think schools "should" do something you will have to make sure you can make them comply.

I am not unsympathetic to parental challenges, having experienced many myself. But if you remove "should" altogether from all discussions on any emotive subject, it helps ground the discussion in reality.

Kirbert2 · 03/07/2025 01:25

Yoodle50 · 03/07/2025 01:16

Because it's a drain and quite frankly when EHCP'S cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds and in some cases hundreds of thousands of pounds the government would be better off paying you to sit on your ass on standby

A child with incontinent issues alone is unlikely to have an EHCP anyway. My son has an EHCP because he is physically disabled.

He has an intimate care plan for his bowel incontinence which doesn't cost anything.

NeedZzzzzssss · 03/07/2025 01:26

Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 01:19

None of this is relevant to the OP's question though.

She is 100 percent correct she is not responsible for cleaning shitty and pissy arses or shitty and pissy clothes unless it is specifically in her job description with training and safeguarding in place.

Edited

You are absolutely correct. Say no OP, if more people do something will have to change. You've already said the TA has gone off sick, the more Senior staff won't do it, so they're picking on the lowest qualified and paid. They are also appealing to peoples better nature, because let's face it, all of us would struggle to let a child suffer. As disgusted as I'd be, I also would want to clean up the poor kid. Stand up for yourself!

Yoodle50 · 03/07/2025 01:32

Kirbert2 · 03/07/2025 01:25

A child with incontinent issues alone is unlikely to have an EHCP anyway. My son has an EHCP because he is physically disabled.

He has an intimate care plan for his bowel incontinence which doesn't cost anything.

A child with incontinence issues should be looked after not disagreeing with that.

Boddica2000 · 03/07/2025 01:34

Oh, and just to add, although I was NEVER - not once ever - asked to wipe a shitty or pissy arse or clean shitty or pissy clothes etc, had I been trained, adequately paid and safeguarding discussed and a plan in place, I would have agreed to that. I had friends who worked at a special school (not sure if that is the current terminology but was what it was called at the time) who did just that and that was part of the job role.

For those who imagine that if you happen to work in a school you are required or morally obliged to clean up piss and shit - you are very sadly mistaken.

And it's extremely unempathetic, unfair and frankly wrong and disgusting to try to force anybody who does not agree to this to do so, as the OP's upline has tried to do.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.