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?

@crumblingschools DD's small class is 14 pupils, the other classes in her year are around 20, bit less maybe. In 1st grade her class was 24 I think and that was considered a large class, large enough for the teacher to apologise for it being so large.
Teachers are generally well respected in society, it's a job that is not easy to get into. But children and teenagers especially aren't as respectful as they used to be, that's a problem everywhere not just the UK but I don't think the level is the same because teachers are otherwise well respected so bad attitudes aren't reinforced by parents etc. But there's definitely problems and getting worse all the time.

Children are brought up to be much more independent than British children, my DD is constantly shocked when I tell her how children are treated in the UK.

The psychologist provision is from health care spending, not education spending (and sadly its not so nice and accessible for adults, unless you have good occupational health care that covers it)

@crumblingschools

Don't really understand your point about fences - why would British schools need to keep people out more than other countries? Is that another way in which we're genetically inferior?
Your question about how children are raised is the very point - by your reckoning, most of the people on this site must have feral kids but that doesn't seem to match what people say. And as @Natsku says, spending better doesn't mean spending more. We spend tons on it, our special needs schools are superb, when they're not being used as holding cells for kids who won't behave. The UK has five times the amount of SEN children than the European average - I find that to be extremely revealing and almost certainly is evidence that we're diagnosing and excusing rather than dealing with problems. Again, the inability of contemporary secondary schools to provide toilet facilities is theirs to solve, not my children's and not children with medical needs, periods or water infections - all of which have been ignored and children severely sanctioned by local schools.

@Hobbi I’m just explaining why schools in this country have fences and gates.

If you think children are being misdiagnosed and it is just bad behaviour, who do you think that is down to and who is responsible for solving it and how?

I know what you were saying about fences, I'm wondering why you think other countries don't see the need for them?

I suspect the answer is complicated and impossible to explain on social media. We do need to simultaneously expect more from parents in terms of their responsibilities while also providing support for families - a better educated and better paid EY workforce would be one thing. See education as an investment - large class sizes and rushed teacher training are false economies. A more equitable society seems to correlate with better education and behaviour outcomes in other countries, so stop voting Tory. An interesting, relevant curriculum that values diversity and a range of abilities would help, with fewer high stakes assessments. Make school a place where children are happy to attend, put them at the centre of educational objectives. Stop and reverse the commodification of education, the de facto privatisation of schools and subsequent inequities in inspection criteria which favours academies and SCITTs has been divisive and hopelessly inefficient. Look to what our near cousins in Northern Europe do for some inspiration before ham-fistingly aping the far east.

@Hobbi I made the comment about fences as another poster said their country don’t have them at their schools as they trust the pupils. I don’t know why other countries don’t deem them necessary. I seem to remember from other threads that Scottish schools are not so obsessed by them, especially in rural areas.

Interesting that @Natsku says behaviour and attitudes are slowly getting worse in their country, as I think they are from Northern European country.

There's a big increase in adhd diagnoses here too, at younger and younger ages. I think the general thought is that it might have to do with increased screen time. But that's another difference, in lower schools at least they don't use screens much at all, it's all physical textbooks and workbooks, no laptops or ipads except for occasional IT lessons, no online homework. So there's a natural reduction in screen time which might help with focus and behaviour (but on the other hand, children get phones at much younger ages here)

British school have fences for safeguarding reasons. To keep people out.

My DD’s school was on a public right of way. People walking dogs across the yards, random nutters wandering in. Eventually the council had to change the right of way so that a big fence could be built.

i’ve seen so many posts on this recently and just find it appalling.

What has changed since I was at school in the 90’s? There was always a bit of graffiti, smoking and skiving but you can’t lock toilets because of this. It’s inhumane!

Other things that happen in school toilets include self harm, sexual harassment/assault, bullying, vandalism (not just graffiti). Now that probably also happened in 90s and earlier but people are more aware now

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I know it's for safeguarding reasons. My question is why it's deemed necessary here but not in other countries? Do other countries not care about their children? Are British people genetically worse? Is there any evidence that fencing children in, removing their toilet rights, isolating them for normal teenage behaviours or testing them until they're wrung dry has any intellectual, health, emotional or safety benefits?

Maybe we have more random nutters in the U.K.?

Yes kids are tested to death and no teacher supports it,

Toilets are a problem that won’t be solved ever, unless there is more money in the system.

@Hobbi I remember all the fences and gates going up when I was in primary school. It was just after the Dunblane shooting.