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?!

Any small child could wet themselves as a one off. As a parent I'd hope a TA would be kind and not refuse to help if it happened to my child in school, that would just make it even more embarrassing and upsetting for them.

Agree that for children where it happens regularly it needs to be looked into more but if you're going to get a job working with young children you have to expect that at least occasionally one of them might throw up or wet themselves. If you can't even face helping a child get changed into a PE kit it's not the job for you.

There was a sickness bug doing the rounds in my child's school before Christmas and one unfortunate boy projectile vomited at our local theatre during a school trip to the pantomime. I would say it's an occupational hazard. But occasionally would be the norm, not every day.

I think that's a very naive comment tbh.

6 isn’t young enough to be expected that they will poo themselves. Most children don’t by the end of nursery. So age 4.

Yeah it just never happened to me as an TA and I worked at around 5 different schools including working with many children in care and children from deprived backgrounds . But then not many kids had accidents so it’s not something any teacher or TA was doing regularly, it was more the exception than the norm.

This is overall a parenting problem or why the sudden upsurge in it post pandemic? It needs to be tackled at the root.

It’s also false - as above I worked full time in primary schools for several years and it wasn’t a thing. “Shit and piss” was NOT fully expected.

What’s happening now as evidenced by this thread is certain people are trying to normalise it. pre- 2020 unless you worked in a special school this was just not expected as a regular thing.

Of course the odd kid here and there had a very occasional accident in some schools, but overall it was the norm to get through a whole school year as a TA without cleaning up “shit and piss” multiple times or even once as in my case.

If this is becoming accepted and expected it’s certainly a problem, that is going to impact on all the children’s educations if staff are being pulled away to do things like that . You will also end up losing good staff who didn’t sign up to do that when they trained to be a teacher/TA.

Children who go to preschool (often from age two) will usually be able to blend some simple cvc words and write their own name. Again, there is a distinction between nurseries (which are primarily to look after children while their parents are at work and will provide intimate care) and preschools, which prepare young children for school. Round here, these tend to operate term-time only, mornings only. I don’t remember any help with toileting taking place.

I think you are the naive one. I’ve screenshotted a TA job description, just a random one found via google, managing the personal care of the children is outlined right at the top of the job description. Maybe English isn’t your first language, so it’s confusing for you? It’s all there in black and white as is the case with most contractual duties.

As I said, not all children. A lot of non verbal children are not SEN they just have never had interaction apart from devices. Are you aware that a large number of children are presenting at school with American accents from all the time they have spent on devices!
you only have to walk around a town or sit in a restaurant to see that parents don’t bother talking to their children! Only last night I was sat next to a table of two adults and two children, all four of them were on phones and tablets, the only time they spoke was to ask the waitress for what they wanted. So sad.

https://www.willand.devon.sch.uk/JobDescriptionTeachingAssistant.pdf

Here is a teaching assistant job description, give it a read.

Yes, many of them will be able to clean themselves up, noone is disputing that. But for those that need help, someone at the school is required to help them. And that is likely to be expected of OP at some point in her career. It is not entitled to expect DC to be cared for whilst they are at school, some DC require more care than others. The LA have decided that school is appropriate for the DC and that is not the parents fault. Do you think it is entitled for DC in wheelchairs to expect a TA to help them around the school, or for the school to have wheelchair access?

Ypu said you'd tell them that you'd sort it out, that's not even a gentle slap on the wrist. In this case it is a lazy, neglectful parent so I'd be telling the parent to come back and change them. I can see the issue though that it's not the child's fault. Fundamentally though, this system enables neglectful parents (lazy is too nice) and gives them zero incentive to properly parent, makes it someone else's job and affects all children's education. Perhaps these parents need to be fined? Perhaps the parents can be forced to do volunteer work where they have to clean shitty pants? I really don't know, but something needs to be done. It will only get worse, there will be even less people going to teaching and overall as a society we'll all be worse off. I do despair. Strange though when parents weren't allowed to do this, it wasn't an issue.

There's a difference between children who are a bit behind in speech development, or talking with American accents, and children who are non verbal. No school age child is non verbal purely because of devices.

I'm not naive, thanks all the same.
It's beyond ridiculous to normalise routinely cleaning up poopy 6 year olds.
🫣
Also, why are you assuming 'English isn't my first language'? 🫣🫣🫣

It's entitled to think that a TA who is employed to assist the whole class focuses mostly on your child, yes.

I think maybe the real issue is that for some on this thread potty training a NT child is their biggest achievement, and they wear their medal proudly. So if we tell them that actually, that is a realitively easy task and the children struggling have more going on, they are offended as they take it as a personal dig.

Eh?

Read the thread back 'I am superior because I managed to teach my DC the basics, disability isn't real, just lazy parents'.

I mean this is it in a nutshell.

Interesting take. 🤔🫣

Your avoidance of providing an alternate plan is astonishing. I don't think many people disagree that it's a poor situation, I don't think anyone is disagreeing that in an ideal world OP shouldn't have to be asked. But whining about it doesn't actually answer the question of who does do it, if OP won't.

I'll just remind you, before you say it, the parents aren't there. We know you think they should be but they're not. Calling them is not an option.

Because you don’t seem able to interpret the words ‘personal care of pupils’ or deduce its meaning in the context of a TA role.

No. The TA’s job is to support the teacher. The clue is in the name.

Alternative options have been provided, by several posters, but we're seeing the same excuses trotted out time after time. Calling parents/guardians is an option. Children being taught (by parents) how to clean themselves is an option. Investigating SEN is an option.* *

I really hope forcing them to volunteer to clean children was more tongue in cheek rather than a serious suggestion. Unless you literally mean the actual dirty pants, then just ignore me.

They're employed to assist the teacher. Clue's in the name.