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?!

Oh I completely agree that there is a management issue here and OP is within her rights to refuse. I would have ensured that this job description did include personal care, and that the person received adequate training and resources from their first day in role.

As a SENCO who has had the equality act quoted at me by the local authority over this very issue, I do.

Yep, and then she would probably not have taken the role. Very few are willing to take on such a role, of course, which is undoubtedly why the TA has gone off sick as per the original post and why the teacher has put in a complaint because she herself is having to do it.

But this is all speculation.The only thing that matters is that the OP is absolutely within her rights to say no to this onerous task, and has chosen to do so.

Again, no you are incorrect. Either link to the specific law that says it is "illegal" and "discrimination" for a parent to be told to come into a mainstream school and deal with the situation when their child is covered in piss and shit, or just leave it.

Then no-one would apply.

You really need to educate yourself on bowel conditions. Please read up on anorectal malformations. There is no quick fix. Children usually end up going back to a stoma, have daily rectal washouts or just take a lot longer to toilet train. Again, let me make this clear, there is NO quick fix, it can take years to find a solution. Children with these conditions with no other needs are not considered SEN and rarely get any extra support. If you would like to campaign for them to get 1-2-1 support please go ahead but considering there are so many children with much higher care needs being refused ECHPs right now, I'd say it's highly unlikely it will happen.

Teachers don't change these children, TAs do and most of them don't batter an eyelid. If you ask their friends if they mind that Miss so and so goes out of the class for 20-30 minutes each day so that a child can be in the class and have access to an education like everyone else do you know what those children would say? Great. It's a shame some adults here don't have the same attitude towards inclusion.

Nonsense from start to finish. Nobody needs to educate themselves on your child's particular issues to understand that you cannot force a minimum wage worker to clean up piss and shit she is untrained to deal with.

If the child has a medical issue parents will discuss that with the school and a plan will be put in place. That's not the discussion.

The OP's role does NOT including offering intimate care to piss and shit covered children and she has opted not to do that. If the school wish her to do that they can train her, give her PPE, put a safeguarding plan in place and update her role description.

TAs in mainstream schools very much do NOT give intimate care to piss and shit covered 6 year old children as a standard. HTH.

You’re not being unreasonable at all BUT you are being naive. This is the reality of working in schools these days.

The reply is still that they need to arrange to get there. 🫣

A child in your care would not left to sit wet or dirty because nobody wanted to change them, if you wanted to, and did, change them. After all, the bottom line is care for children, is it not? As job descriptions don't seem to matter to you, why not you? I believe job descriptions and the details in a working contract are very important. They protect employees and the people that they come into contact with in the workplace. It would be totally inappropriate to intimately clean a child if that wasn't in one's job description/contract. In addition, it would be totally inappropriate to be asked to do this when it is known not to be in the job description of that person.
Whether or not training was undertaken would be irrelevant unless the employee agreed to undertake the task and to a change in their working contract.

🫣
There's a moral responsibility though.

Yep.

My son used to have a stoma and it actually made things worse, not better. This was back when it was assumed his bowel just needed some time to recover but it eventually became apparent that it wouldn't be the case so the decision was made for him to have a reversal as soon as we could which did improve things.

The only reason he has an EHCP is because he is also physically disabled.

So, a totally different scenario to this one then. Sorry about your son's struggles, I hope the EHCP meant you were able to have suitably trained staff support him.

The role is to teach and/or to assist teaching.
Unless there is an actual medical need then 5 and 5 year old should not be in nappies.

He has 2:1 support for his physical needs but it is TA's who change him.

Suitably trained TAs who have accepted that as their role, which is of course totally different to the standard TA role. I'm glad he gets the support he needs thanks to you advocating for him and working out a solution with the school.

What happens to the child in the meantime?

Yes, I agree. You might want to look at what my post was referring to

It falls under part 6 of the equality act. There is case law that disability discrimination includes children who do not yet have a formal diagnosis. There is also case law that requiring a parent to be in school to support a child is discriminatory. I don't have references to that case law. It also comes under a school's duty of care.

Ultimately, if the headteacher were unable to hire anyone who would support with intimate care, they would be required to deal with it themselves. Thankfully, there are plenty of staff in our school who do agree to it (including our head, who has supported toileting for some of our SEND pupils when she was the most appropriate person). This allows vulnerable children to access their education. Some of these child have medical conditions, learning disabilities, neurodivergence or significant early trauma. Others do have poor parenting; those children also deserve support.

On a side note, I find it utterly vile that you are repeatedly referring to "piss and shit covered children". Would you like people to refer to your child in that way?

Reported

You don’t know there’s no Sen at that age though, lots of things still get put down to being typical behaviour for the age and still within the “normal” range of what’s expected. Often Sen only becomes obvious as child gets older and the differences become more apparent.

My son was in the meeting and asked for these particular TA's to be the 2 named people who change him.

It's a very long road to seek support and then get it put in place.

Yep, as suspected, even less chance for that poor person to say no.

You're doing people with genuine needs a disservice when you lump them together with lazy parenting. Actual teachers have posted about kids starting school where the parents have not bothered to toilet train. Read the full thread.

No, it doesn't. As I said, please link directly to the law that you claim means it is illegal and discrimination for a school to contact parents and ask them to come and deal with their child having soiled themselves.

It is not actually illegal or discrimination at all, of course.

IF the child has disabilities/challenges then that will be addressed case by case. If the school are refusing to address issues that have been raised, that is an entirely different scenario.

But in this scenario a 6 year old child with no plan in place no SEN whose parents are called to come and deal with their child soiling themeslves is NOT discrimination and is NOT illegal. It is in fact part of the duty of care of the school to directly involve the parents and if they are ignoring a medical or other issue even better that they are forced to come into the school as the conversation needs to begin about what the child needs.

it's neither illegal or discrimination in the scenario discussed and it's just that simple. I recognise that people love to throw those terms around in the hope of an appeal to authority, but you are incorrect.