School bathroom

[SomeoneRandom]

My child has come to me and said her school has locked every single bathroom minus one. That one bathroom has about 8 stalls. 3 girls. 3 boys. Yeah 7,8,9 and 10 all now only have this one bathroom. This is about 1000 students. Is this legal? All the other bathrooms are locked completely, one of the bathrooms even has a wooden panel covering the doorway to make sure students don't get in. My daughter also said outside the one bathroom, they now only have, there is a teacher with a desk. I'm not sure what she does. I'm guessing they're keeping track? What should I do?

You can't retro fit individual loos around school buildings. So those with blocks need to combat the assaults, the vandalism and the vaping.
With no funding and no spare resources, the only way to do this is by locking them and having a key for emergencies.

@Natsku maybe your schools have more funding and better quality buildings.

If you have a toilet block that has been vandalised, there is no money to fix it, so it has to be closed. So children have further to go to the next block. Children wandering round school corridors is usually a recipe for disaster

Not sure what the behaviour is like in your schools in your country but in schools in England it is currently horrendous, and toilets are where this behaviour can escalate unfortunately.

But the question remains, why? Why are English schools seemingly ruled by unruly children? The funding is irrelevant if the children are so bad. We know academies (using Newspeak) have 'inclusion' spaces, used to exclude children - could it be that the 'positive discipline' policies are actually negatively impacting on our children? Rules are much, much stricter than they've been since the 60s but this no toilet policy is relatively new. Perhaps a rethink of how we treat our young people is needed.

@hobbi do you ever visit schools?

Some of the reasons schools are really struggling at the moment are

• children/families who need help and support from external agencies are not getting it. Schools are having to provide what support they can with no funding
• parents don't back schools up when their child has misbehaved
• many families do not value education, especially after lockdown
• many families expect schools to sort any parenting fails out
• staff retention crisis, many children don't cope if their go to adult for support leaves and is either replaced by someone else, or more likely now not to be replaced
• many families are struggling, cost of living, MH, DV, this transfers into school. Again, schools are meant to sort this without any funding
• many classes are being taught by inexperienced staff (sometimes not even a teacher)
• large class sizes, only going to get bigger with lack of staff
• not enough money to fund additional staff to give pastoral support

And another biggie influencing behaviour is social media/internet/phones

Reason #9726728 I'm happy to be home educating

I was a very bolshy teen. This rule would have had me pissing on the school property, ideally visible to passing public and loudly explaining why, every time the queue too long for the break. I would have delighted in it too, and would have loved the resulting row. Difficult teens are still difficult when denied toilet access.

I work in a school now. I'd still advise my DC to pee on the school grounds if they instituted this rule. I have wet myself on my way home from work once, years ago, when not allowed toilet access in the day and thought I could get back in time; humiliating in the extreme. Better only piss on the floor, than over the floor and yourself...

@crumblingschools

Do I ever visit schools?

😂😂😂

Until very, very recently, about 50 a year, sometimes to discuss some of the issues you mention. That enough for you? I've also conducted research visits to schools in other countries, none of which seem have these issues to this degree. Not all English schools are like this, the few LA secondaries left and some with a faith ethos which are LA controlled or part of a small trust seem to have better relationships with their children. Most of the issues seem to be in schools where one of the government's favourite MATs has ridden in on their white horses, promising great things and treating children like the units of income they obviously see them as. I could go on about the dry, abusive curriculum as well but let's blame parents and children instead eh? When you actively decide against child centred education, you push their needs to the periphery.
None of this is actually relevant to the topic at hand; using the toilet is an essential right and if the current school regime can't provide it, they should get out of the business.

What the fuck is this country coming to when kids are denied toilets?

Utterly ridiculous not to have access to a loo.

Complain and complain and complain. Single sex loos are a must.

Haven't you heard, it's because of feckless parents and COVID. Nothing to do with MATs being control freaks.

They make vape detectors, they are very similar to smoke alarms. If vaping is the problem closing the toilet block would be a bit of an overreaction when simpler solutions exist.

@Hobbi so if you visit schools and discuss those issues what are you doing about it and what is your solution?

Many of the things I listed are things out of the schools control (whether they are control freaks or not). If a child has behavioural needs and there is no external agency to help them and no funding in school, what is the school meant to do. Children are on waiting lists for years to get external help. Why is that a power craze MAT's fault?

@Barleysugar86 who is going to pay for them? Who is going to monitor them? Not much help if a vape alarm goes off and there is no-one around to sort it

The school l worked out used to have problems with kids going I the toilets and leaving the taps switched on.

This caused 10k deliberate damage 4 times. This was in a nice school.

I'm sure I've read this on a local FB page too so think you're local to me - my children don't go here but those of friends do. Apparently lots of food gets thrown down the loos!

What's the point in a vape alarm? So we can get extra conformation someone is vaping...

I've very recently stopped doing that, whether I take it up again is down to health considerations. I've already said, schools which develop relationships with children tend to have fewer issues like this. Schools that have stifling behaviour policies and teachers with no apparent training in how teenagers think, feel and learn do. Also, this is a parenting site and you are suggesting every child in every school spends time in some sort of apocalyptic hell every day and that depriving them of their rights to sanitation is the only solution.
I wonder if all the parents on here recognise their children as being unable to go to the loo without turning feral?
I've answered your questions, answer this: is it acceptable to deny young people access to the toilet? That's what this thread is about, not an opportunity to defend academy chains, poor lambs.

Most schools have some sort of toilet control now, not just the big name academy trust run ones.

Schools are reacting to, in most cases, shit parenting. When there was trust, parenting boundaries and positive relationships, toilets didn't get trashed.

You can have all the positive relationships in the world now, but the 5% of students will trash it for everyone.

I am not defending academy chains.

Do we know if OP's school is even part of an academy?

No it is not right that children can't go to the toilet, but as I have said many children don't go to the toilets even if they are open

@Hercisback

I'll ask you a similar question then; why does this seem to be a unique characteristic of English children and schools?

Agree with some others that some schools lock toilets during lessons. At my secondary school in early 00's the only toilets open all day long were on the ground floor, the ones that were upstairs were hardly ever unlocked, even during lesson change overs and lunch times. Really, really poor management

Ok, it's not right so a solution, enabling them to access toilet facilities is urgently needed. That's the immediate task at hand. And schools are duty bound to find that solution. Once done, they can tell us how difficult it was, but do it they must.

@Hobbi do you think schools are locking toilets for the fun of it, do you not think they are trying to find solutions? Because locking toilets is down to many behavioural factors which they are also trying to find solutions to.

Maybe other countries have more external agencies working with families, maybe schools have more funding so can have staff walking the corridors, maybe other countries have better quality school buildings so can have more and better sited toilets

Maybe families in other countries value education more.

Attendance figures in schools are horrendous, when surveyed many parents have said post lockdown they don't worry/care if their child misses school because no-one cared whether they were there during lockdown (nothing to do with power crazy MATS)