School wants my 10-year-old in nappies due to bowel issues

[CoffeeMama22]

My DD has been struggling with her bowels all her life, fully potty trained dry night and day. She is 10.
recently she has been off school due to a bowel obstruction. Awaiting surgical removal etc. due to over flow, pain etc she has been unable to attend school.

school has stated that I need to put my daughter in nappies, their words not mine!

shes 10 and never had any issues before.
im so angry right now, and really thinking about home schooling.

I have asked for medical reports from consultants etc, but for a 10 year old surely this would be embarrassing and backwards learning. I have personally asked my daughter and she has said no, but the school have said it’s effecting her education way too much. FYI I have been doing a lot of home Ed because the school haven’t sent her any school work yet.

Excellent 👌

It's because they want her in school at any cost and don't agree with OP not sending her.

Insane! It’s things like this that make me hate this country. & I do love it. I really do so I come back round, but wtf is this! Why are we all putting up with this!

And why is that excellent! OP says poor girl is in pain and her bowels overflowing. Why should be sitting in a virtual class with a robot. For christs sake just let the girl be ill in peace.

Tell them it’s an equalities issue, and they are discriminating against her because she has medical issues.

Feed your child more fibre.

She has a bowel condition. It has nothing to do with her diet.

If OP’s child has Hirschprung’s Disease, which it sounds like is what the doctors suspect, it means she wasn’t born with ganglion cells in all or part of her bowel (most likely part of her bowel if she’s made it to 10 without surgical intervention). Ganglion cells control the muscle contractions which allow a person to empty their bowel, meaning they can’t properly empty their bowel. Fibre isn’t going to help and your suggestion is insulting and simplistic.

139 bananas. Or you could read OP’s posts.

Robots are shit for learning. For social connection they help a bit but it's very forced.

Oh wow,absolutely not!! My daughter suffered immensely with constipation growing up,she had to be admitted on so many occasions for surgical intervention. I had to give her something called sodium picosulfate,absolutely horrible stuff!! There was a time I had no other option than to use nappies, but never at school!! Lucky they were quite understanding. Stand your ground!! Hope this goes in your favour!

Doesn’t sound like daughter should be in school right now. Can’t they send a teacher to her a few times a week? What is it that you want the school to do?

Please can you tell me more? This sounds incredible? Is there any branding etc on the instructions so I can google? I’m really interested in this!

I think you are being overly harsh to an innocent statement! It is an excellent sounding solution for helping kids who can't be in school to keep in the education loop. Don't forget that for long winded situations, there does need to be attempts to try and get some education here and there because otherwise too much is missed and then you are talking about impacts to future exams etc.

Sorry the school are putting you through this. Please read gov statutory guidance (I've mentioned 3 specific gov docs below) which schools frequently 'ignore'. Arm yourself with facts. I'm sorry you need to spend time on this rather than just dealing with your childs health. Sadly schools focus will be on attendance and not wellbeing.
Remember school policy does not trump law. Good luck and I hope your child gets the medical help she needs soon.

Read 'Working Together to Improve School Attendance'

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2

https://www.gov.uk/illness-child-education

Unfortunately though there was a statistic stating that something like 1 in every 5 kids has excessive absence from school. That's a grim statistic and yet another fall out largely from the benefit system allowing people to sit around and breed large families that the parents can't really be bothered with. There's no parent in the house with a job to get up for so the kids don't get sent to school either. Someone was moaning on a community page where I live that she wants the housing association to give her a 4 bed house because she's in a flat with 3 kids under 5 and another on the way. This is also why kids end up going to school without potty training and fundamental developmental basics because you can't do it all for what will be soon 3 kids under 5 plus a newborn especially when daddy never lives at home or houses his own family as seems to always be the case.
And decent parents in genuine situations having to bear the brunt of the problems these people cause.

That's fine but when I have a child who is well enough to learn but too ill to physically get to school it would be perfect

How is it perfect?

They're a "solution" that placate people and gives an impression the child is learning. I can tell you now that they are barely learning anything. Socially it provides some cohesion if the student is already known to the class.

For actual learning, children would be better on Oak Academy.

@FlyingCatGirl I’m not sure why you felt the need to reply to my post with an irrelevant benefit-bashing rant, but it’s left me feeling rather unclean 🤮. OP is looking for advice about her situation, not your unreconstructed bigotry. Start your own thread if you want to ramble about the demon underclass.

Well said 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-for-children-with-health-needs-who-cannot-attend-school

This is the document you need. Statutory guidance exists for these kinds of situations and the school should be aware of it. They have a duty to maintain her education even if she can't make it into school because of medical needs, and if they can't it needs to go to your local authority's Section 19 process.

Hi again, I have found this, which looks like it may help https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/657995f0254aaa000d050bff/Arranging_education_for_children_who_cannot_attend_school_because_of_health_needs.pdf
I saw someone mentioned EOTAS but that's a long process asn it sounds like you need a decision right now. I believe you'd have to notify the Head that you are home schooling from X date to Y date in line with the relevant Acts.

Do you have a local continence service? All areas should. I'm a continence b&b nurse for our area and help patients with these problems

It's not normal for a 10-year-old girl to be unable to control her bowel movements. Hirschprung disease is usually diagnosed shortly after birth (90%) in the UK at least. Encopresis is more likely and lack of fibre in the diet is the main cause. A GP should set up an appointment with a nutritionist specialising in children.

I believe you'd have to notify the Head that you are home schooling from X date to Y date in line with the relevant Acts.

Unless OP wants to electively home educate, she be careful of informing anyone that she is homeschooling. They are likely to see the term homeschooling as OP saying she is electively home educating. Instead she needs to request medical needs tuition under section 19 of the Education Act 1996.

EOTAS/EOTIS via an EHCP as per section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014 takes time, most have to appeal for a proper package, but s19 provision (which is also sometimes called EOTAS) should not long to put into place. It sometimes does because LAs act unlawfully, but it doesn’t have to.