School toilets

[Sweetheart1990]

School toilets!
Son text me to say he had walked out of lesson after being refused permission to go to the toilet, he had finished all his work. I have always told him to do this if he is desperate but he never actually has before.
He has been put in isolation.
I'm angry as I really believe that students should be allowed to go when they need to and he had completed all tasks so was just say in the classroom anyway.
What does everyone else think?

This is a huge part of the problem - I don't know about you personally, but many want to categorise people into two groups: elderly/disabled/useless/unimportant or young/healthy/normal/worthy of consideration.

People are people - and all of them are inherently worthy of respect and dignity, and all of them have human needs: some universal and some that are specific to them personally.

Even now you're asking what medical issues he has before you consider him worthy of this respect. Why should people with disabilities and medical conditions be pressured to share this private information with all and sundry, often just so they can be judged either as 'worthy' or told they are lying/exaggerating/imagining it/thinking they are special or whatever.

He's a human being who needs to use the toilet - and he's given no signs whatsoever that he's claiming this falsely in order to be able to go and mess around. Why is that not enough?

Why should he not have to declare a medical reason for urgently needing the toilet to the school in order that he could then have a pass to go? Errrr… 🤔 but yes you are right - it doesn’t have to be declared on this thread. Teens are known for not popping out of lessons every 5 mins given the chance and schools obviously don’t know anything about child behaviour given these ridiculous rules they put in place. Gosh I’ve completely changed my mind now 😂

I can’t believe people are still so against a child needing the toilet. a basic human right.

school rules are school rules, I’m all for them, but if a child has asked 3 times to go it shows he’s desperate.

if he was to piss himself in class you would all be so against the school for not letting him go.
it’s mortifying for those it’s happened to.

you all must have really good pelvic floors to hold in a desperate wee

Of all the school-related threads on here, this might have attracted the most bizarre people. You’ve manage managed to construct a world in your head where the choice is between going to the toilet and being a part of the school community. I hope you are just an armchair authoritarian and not an actual teacher.

my advice: calm down and get ahold of yourself. If your sense of order is shattered by a good student going to the toilet in an emergency, then it wasn’t doing you any good to begin with.

No.
It's you and your reaction.
You've blown it up, you.
The school isn't posting on Mumsnet looking to whip up anti parent sentiment.

No, they wouldn’t be against the school if he had an accident. For people that obsessed with order and obedience, the resulting bullying is just the students culling the herd of someone who can’t conform. Bullying is a feature of authoritarian systems, not a bug. At best, the abject humiliation and ostracism of one student is an acceptable price to pay for absolute order.

If they are teachers, which I doubt, they are very likely bullies in their own classrooms.

Reading their posts, it looks like you’re arguing with someone who is mentally unwell. I would leave it.

Ironically, if a school actually kept such a person in a position of responsibility, that would itself justify your child carrying a cellphone, because it would call into question call their competence to look after his wellbeing.

This is embarrassing now. Nobody would write "there were 19 minutes and 12 seconds of lesson left and he was gone for five minutes and three seconds." As I think you know full well.

How disrespectful to have to perform a perfectly normal bodily function.

Where I live there is an ongoing saga about this. The toilets are locked with a padlocked gate during lesson time, and only opened on break time. Meaning massive queues and very little privacy because there is pressure to get in and out as quickly as possible. Parents are up in arms and the school are not budging.

Some teenage girls have had period related incidents and been forced to sit in it and wait. Kids have wet themselves and then walked out of school, waiting so long in a queue only to have the bell go off and be ushered away and back to lesson. Its barbaric if you ask me.

There was even a girl who had the most horrific battle with ovarian cancer, when she recovered and returned she wasnt given any exemptions to use the toilet in lesson time despite the after effects of chemo and radiation being completely unpredictable.

How it hasnt ended up on the news I dont know

Maybe you should name and shame here and someone will contact the Mail.

DD2 secondary it did end up in local paper but school claimed they were always accessible in break times - which wasn't kids experinces - and medical passes were avaliable though not always as helpful as hoped. So blunted effect and looked like it was whiny parents and kids TBH.

I don't think there were such dramatic issues as you describe - though think DD2 got into bad holding habits - but truancy rates were high anyway and teen girls did go up..

Most teachers more sympathetic than management where they could be - they had winters with all windows open and most teachers had let them keep coats on - though head took to doing spot checks and insisting kdis couldn't ware coats - and 12 months were they made eating in school near impossible - so it was a pattern of behavior.

I really hope you're not a teacher yourself.

What you’re describing is simply abuse and bullying, similar to what got the Mossbourne schools in trouble recently. This school needs to be named and shamed in the media, and local mp should get involved as well.