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?

It's a very difficult situation with multiple perspectives that need to be considered.

1. Needing the toilet is a basic need.

2. Most humans can hold most toilet needs until a convenient time.

3. Occasionally, toilet needs are urgent.

4. Bear in mind the teacher can't get up and leave a class alone for the toilet (sackable offense to leave a class unattended).

5. There should be no more than a 2 hour period between break times (2 lessons in a row). BUT there is also transfer time between lessons when nipping to the loo is possible.

6. If toilet use is not managed by the teacher, it is used as an excuse by students to get out of the classroom.

7. School toilets are frequently vandalised during lesson time due to unsupervised use.

8. Management make toilet use policies, not teachers.

9. Secondary pupils are the ones most likely to abuse going to the toilet to get out of lessons.

10. If anything happens while your child / a student is out of the classroom, the TEACHER will be held responsible for letting them out. And will in all likelihood be disciplined as a result.

So by all means encourage him to leave the room for the loo in lesson time. But he'll also have to take the consequence. If it's a choice between messing/wetting himself and doing a period of isolation, I'm sure isolation is preferable.

I ring the school first thing I'd heard about it, they said they would chase up and haven't contacted me since, obviously I don't want to go in gins blazing if he hasn't been put there

It’s the age old story of a few badly behaved kids spoiling it for the rest. I’ve worked in schools for many years. You get kids messaging each other from different classrooms ( having said they didn’t have a phone to hand in) to meet up in the toilets. Kids vaping in the toilets. Or vandalising the toilets. So a blanket ban on going during lessons is put in place, thereby affecting the good kids who genuinely do need to go. Most pupils should be able to manage this by going at break but things don’t always go to plan. It’s so hard for the teacher to know which way to turn sometimes.

Many of us have this experience at work, or when driving, at a show - we go before or in intervals and only walk out when it is a genuine emergency.
I think the "emergency" element of this is confused by the OP saying he'd done his work - that surely is irrelevant.

Pupils cannot just go to the toilet when they feel.like. I was a teacher for over 30 years. Unless there is a medical reason most people can manage to get through a lesson and go at the end. If pupils walked out on whim no learning would take place. Often pupils will choose not to go to the loo at specified breaks. Telling him to walk out has done him.no favours.

It really is impossible for school staff. Toilets do get used for vaping, get trashed, we once found a student drinking alcohol that had been shoplifted earlier, and our cleaners were always moaning about faeces on the walls/bins etc. There just aren't the staff to police them because, obviously, if you're going in lesson then most teachers are teaching then!

If students behaved the same as adults at work that would be great! Trouble is that you can't let Amy go because you trust that she does need a wee but deny Donald because you know he's probably trying to sneak out because you have no proof and it wouldn't be fair. So schools do a blanket rule and hope that kids can go at the assigned times.

its really difficult for the teacher. They are not supposed to let pupils out of lessons for safeguarding reasons. But inevitably pupils do need to the toilet sometimes and it must be dealt with sensitively. The other thing I would observe is what I always called the cascade effect. If you let one pupil go who is clearly genuinely in need, you are then met with half the class saying “can I go when he comes back?” And then “you let him go so why won’t you let me go?” This can derail a whole lesson as a teacher is then wasting time trying to manage and justify decisions they are taking and this can impact all pupils. As a teacher it’s a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Exactly planning and using the toilets at appropriate breaks. He doesn't need to go that badly, or if he does he's not managing himself well.

God who'd be a teacher

Of course, make humans don't need to use the toilet, even sometimes urgently, why turn this into another men are evil thread?

The vaping, vandalism of toilets and bullying is a real issue

Then why did you tell us he had?

It's like you're so desperate to believe him, you've jumped the gun massively instead of keeping an open mind.

When schools overstep then parents and students must push back. The school need to remember that the children are left in their care, but they do not have the right to override parents. Nobody can predict the need to use the toilet and nobody should be refused access if they are in a position where they just can't wait.

You'd be happy about it until something happened while they were out - another pupil hit yours or whatever - then you'd be up in arms.
In this scenario. Your son should have gone to the teacher after his work out, speak privately and say something like "I'm really sorry to have ignored your instructions but I genuinely was going to burst if I don't go"

Another issue of course is academy schools. They are prison-like in their rules and regulations. We've sleep walked into letting this happen in our education system.

I would rather be unemployed than work in an academy. And I'm terrified that my DC will need to attend one.

This is nothing against the individual teachers, but the management of them is absolutely shit.

Try reading the post correctly

Don't know when we got to this position but the incident I mentioned where I wasn't allowed to go to the toilet when my period started was 58 or 59 years ago. It isn't new.

Weird response

Because the school are notorious for ridiculous rules around the toilet! And my son knows the rules better than I do and he assumes he will be

How will your child manage on a school trip?

My son went to Holland with school last year, toilet on the coach, toilet on the ferry and was allowed access to toilet whenever they needed it throughout the day

You said that he had been put in isolation.

Your OP says he has been put in isolation

You very well might. I don't recall being in a business meeting where one of the participants wet or soiled themselves rather than call for a break.

In my workplace you’d leave at any time if you were desperate. Clearly it’s better if you can wait, not everyone can for various reasons. A choice between disrupting a lesson/meeting and causing myself severe discomfort and embarrassment is a no brainer imo.

I appreciate teachers have a tough job policing this and that it is disruptive for kids to constantly be in and out of lessons for the toilet but I also think they should use their discretion and common sense. The alternative really is quite unthinkable.

Op you’re not wrong to be pissed off. When schools ram home the importance of good attendance then place students in isolation for needing the toilet it really is quite disgraceful. In those circumstances I’d probably pick my kid up rather than have them pointlessly sit in isolation all day.

I haven’t RTFT. But I think it’s disgusting that young people are treated as less than human.
If I need to use the bathroom at work I would. Even if it was urgent during a meeting. We are all human.