cant start playgroup as he's still in nappies????

[mckenzie]

My son, who is 2 and a half, was due to start playschool for 2 mornings a week on monday but as our attempts to toilet train over the holidays have failed and he is still in nappies the playschool will not take him.

Is this usual? The lady in charge has been very nice about it and has agreed to keep his place open until the february half term but I'm a tad disappointed. DS isn't the most confident of children when mixing with others his own age and I was keen for him to socialise a bit more and he was so happy on his trial session that I feel the sessions would be good for him (not that I'm a child physcologist or anything).

Do children normally start playschool at this age?

They wear goves at my son's nursery, both to change nappies, or help the children on the toilet. I think its fairly standard health and safety now.

Sorry Jimjams, there is absolutely no way I would clean the bum of someone else's 3 year old! At that point you're defo dealing with proper grown-up shit. Sure, people working with special needs kids know what they're taking on, but I don't think it's what the average primary teacher or school NNEB was expecting. I really don't see why it should be seen as part of their job.

what so a child with a medical problem which means that she soils herself (she is not special needs the reason she soils herself is a physcial problem in the gut, nowhere else) should stay away from the nice children in the local private school. She has to go to the state school because they dont have a choice and have to take her. Are you really saying that? BTW this little girl is starting state school this week. She isn't SN so she doesn't get any extra help. What's she meant to do - sit in it all day whilst all the teachers etc are too precious to help her out.

BTW mainstream nurseries are not allowed to refuse children with disabilities these days. So some NNEB trained nanny may get more than she bargained for. Heck no wonder so many mainstream nurseries and schools are such a disaster for SN kids.

I think the average pimary school teacher would find that she fairly likely to get the SN kid in her class now as well. That's what inclusion means. Someone has to decide they're going to help these kids to the toilet, and very few come with their own LSA's.

DS1's teacher is fine about kids with toilet problems. She has a few in her class who are unreliable. She keeps and eye on them and all the adults in reception are very good at whisking certain children to the toilet very quickly (I'm not talking SN kids here).

My dd attended two playgroups from 2.5 yo which stated all children except those with SEN had to be reliably potty trained. She is now due to go to the Infact School Nursery where they say the same. In fact at the playgroups you were telephoned if they soiled themselves to and told to go and change them.

I don't think its just because they don't want to handle poo, although it's not exactly my favourite job and they're my kids. At DS2s nursery (thats a pre-reception one not a general one) they won't help the kids physically (sp?) with their pants or trousers because they have been advised that they could then be open to allegations of inappropriate touching, which I think is really sad.
I was worried that Ds would not be dry in time for the beginning of term, and they said they would be OK with pull ups for a short period. We were lucky though as DS was clean a couple of months before.

I know lots of nurseries have these policies, but I just find it sad and to be honest pretty uncaring. At my son's nursery there was recently a barney with OFSTED about nappy changing (staff do it in view of other staff in order to avoid allegations of abuse etc- OFSTED said this didn't respect the children's privacy).

My view though is that if a school or nursery would prefer to leave a child who has soiled themself sitting in that mess in order for the mother to come and change them rather than do it themselves then that is not a caring environment. It is in the child's interests to be changed immediately, not sat for 20 minutes waiting for someone to come and do it. And making a fuss baout it is likely to leasd to further problems. IME when you want to pick a school (early years anyway) or nursery that is a caring place to be, where your (normally developing) child will be treated individually, then pick one that is good with SN and has a good reputation amongst parets of SN children. You will fast track yourself to a caring nursery where staff treat your child as an individual and shock horror as a human being. Odd quircks your child has will not become issues.

Just my view.

i agree with jimjams

we are lucky that none of the playgroups in our town have this 'wont change smelly bums' attitude. Surely if nurseries have to include SN children because of the DDA it would be dicrimination for them to exclude a NT child for not being trained (?)

At my sister's state nursery school, which is as caring as they come, my mum was called in because sis had cut her knee in the playground and it was bleeding. Sis was wearing tights and policy is that they are not allowed to help kids get trousers or tights down and sis was freaking out about the blood too much to do it herself. how then are they supposed to deal with untrained kids? As for sn in every class, not too convinced, and training is not necessarily a prob for all sn kids, is it?

I really don't see a willingness to clean up poo as incontrovertible evidence that a school is caring or not. It's a shame that your friend's DD hasn't had such a wide choice of schools, but I understand where the private school is coming from. As for schools that are good with SN kids being especially caring, I find that slightly offensive. It suggests that parents choosing to send their kids to schools which wouldn't be able to deal with SN kids are sending them to regimented holes and that just isn't true!

I'm afraid there will be SN kids in every childs class soon, have you not heard they are closing all special schools?

I am A early years worker. ( thats what we are suposed to be called now. Playgroups do not have to take children in nappies, (unless thy have a special need) but a lot of playgroups are now doing this.If a play group does take them in nappies they have to hav changing facilities available. The playgroup where I,m working at at the moment will take children in pull ups always has spare clothes available.

I don't really object to a nursery saying "potty trained kids only please". It's what they do when accidents happen thay bother me. I was potty trained at 18 months. I remember having an accident at school at age 5 and being mortified. If I had been made to sit in it until my mum came to clean me then I don;t think you would have got me back theough the school gates. Young children have accidents. It happens, and I am very suspicious of places that act as if it so disgusting that they can't possibly deal with it.

Ds1's school do cope with the fact he can't go to the toilet himself. They also cope with the fact that he can't tolerate the hand dryer being on in the toilet. I don't know how they do it (well they turn the hand dryer off but I assume someone helps him with his pants and trousers as he can't fo it himsel), I haven't asked, but they do.

I did say ime, and I have heard this from mother's at the nursery whose children have no SN (the majority don't). All I'm saying is that in order for a school or nursery to cope with SN they have to put the children first, and if they do it for their SN kids they do it for their normal ones as well. The fact that they can cope with ds1 toileting problems means that they can also cope when a normal kid has an accident and they don't call mum in to clean up the mess (what on earth happens if the mother works? does the child have to bleed/sit in shit all day?)

thanks for all these messages. It's great to get lots of different view points.
The lady in charge that i spoke to did stress that her main concern and reason for not taking toilet trained children is that some children (and this is mine exactly) will do a poo and carry on doing whatever they are doing with no mention to anyone. It could go unnoticed (unless it was very smelly) and could cause problems for the child's bottom.
As m y son likes to go into a corner and hide when he poos it is highly highly unlikely that he will poo at playgroup (and he's normally an afternoon man whereas playgroup is in the morning) so as long as I can get him sorted on the weeing side of things then hopefully we'll be okay. I do only live literally 5 mins from the PG as well so they could always call me to change him.

I'm thinking of putting some Thomas the Tank stickers all over the wall in the downstairs loo to make this 'his special toilet' to see if that might help. Does anyone have any views on whether this is a good idea or not (the stickers come off really easily and he is a huge Thomas fan).

mckenzie

When ds was trained but not particularly fussed if he had an accident we also tried to designate the guest cloakroom "his" to encourage him. He still talks about it as "his" when he shows people around 2 years later.

I think many playgroups have become more relaxed about it as they have been forced to take children younger than a few years ago to survive. Many have come under pressure to keep numbers up following an expansion of school-based nursery classes and the voucher system which meant they tended to lose the older ones sooner iyswim.

dd 2.4 is not potty trained yet, despite showing early promise, but is at a pg where she can remain in nappies until she is ready. We made a real effort to train ds at 2.8 in preparation for preschool, and didn't have any accidents there for several months but he relapsed when we moved.

My dd's preschool has the same rule so it is not an uncommon one, and it accelerated how quickly I would otherwise have started her on potty training.
I would just carry on with potty training, send your son and if he has accidents at playgroup they will deal with them - they ask you to provide a change of clothes so they must expect it!

Also a bit of peer pressure is sometimes helpful!

In answer to your question about SN- There are statemented children in every year group in ds1's school - at least from reception up to year 3 don't know about any higher up. This makes sense as the ed psych told us 4 years ago ds1 would have been in a special school- now no way. There will be others apart from the statemented children. I know at least one of those children was offered a place at special school. So I reckon one in every class is about right.

At ds1's second choice school I know of 6 statemented children between reception and year 2. All autistic spectrum.

I know that at least one of the other children in ds1s school had toilet problems as they asked me whether ds1 would mind being given a change of clothes from the change of clothes bag. i said that I would send him in with a change anyway and they said in their experience one change wasn't enough.

As it happens he's been very good and hasn't had any axccidents since they've turned the hand dryer off when he goes. BUt they certainly seem to treat accidents as par for the course in reception.

fio, you have worried me! Are they really going to close all special schools or just restrict them to those who really couldn't attend mainstream ie severe and profound SN? We love dd's special school - TBH I'd be devastated if she couldn't go there at age 4 (sorry, going off thread).

PS Our local playgroup was very flexible, they had one boy in nappies till 4.5 and were prepared to clean up poos. The playleader (who was very hot on rules and regulations) gave me the impression they had to cope with it otherwise it was discrimination.

Caroline- in our LEA they are shutting some special schools and keeping others open but with reduced numbers. One of those is specialising now in communication disorders, whilst others are remaining general MLD etc.

The ed psych told me that 4 years ago ds1 would have been in a special school, now he wasn't deemed suitable for special school as he was "coping" in a mainstream nursery. Inclusion basically says unless a child can't cope with mainstream they have to be in mainstream.

To give you some idea of his level. His IQ is in the normal range- will be high in some areas but his language has been assessed as being at an 18 month level- he understands nouns and not much else. He is also severely dyspraxic, so can't hold a pencil properly- just scribbles etc. And we weren't even allowed to look at special schools. He is being well supported in mainstream.

Some areas are a bit further ahead with inclusion than others. HOwever all are havig to reduce their special school numbers, very few special schools in the country are 100% safe in the longterm (although some are- eg the communication one I mentioned earlier).

Caroline sorry didnt mean to frighten you! Its just they are closing most, and i wonder if eventually it will not be all special schools. We are not allowed to look at the special schools for our dd either now (in kent!) I think its a shame too, dd's special school is great and the love and care for her sooooo much

Caroline hope you are all well btw and had a nice christmas and new year

Oh dear, just can't imagine dd in mainstream, she would be totally overwhelmed and upset apart from anything else. The whole system has gone haywire Our special school only has about 50 children with major learning disabilities and covers a large area of Glos. so perhaps they have already restricted it.

Thanks fio, did you get my e-mail before Xmas? Hope you had a good time!