Supervision in school changing rooms

[defyingravity]

I'm a bit concerned at the level of supervision in the changing rooms at dd's school. She told me about an incident todat after swimming where three girls were playing tug of war with her new towel (it is a souvenir one and was expensive but thats not the point if I was that concerned about the cost I wouldn't have sent her in with it). The one girl who was first inthe changing rooms had grabbed it and they were pulling it about and refusing to let dd have it back. Consequently she was behind in getting changed.

I asked who was supervising the changing rooms and she said that no-one supervised them now they are in Year 4.

Later a friend told me that her daughter had been systematically bullied in the changing rooms when there was no supervision.

I'm just a bit surprised there is no-on in with them or is this usual at that age?

Bump for the morning.

er,normal for our schools!

Is it a case of teachers protecting themselves? I can imagine that there have been accusations towards teachers involving changing rooms and it is impractical to have 2 members of staff on duty in there to support each other. Maybe if you drop the teacher a line she will be able to find a way around it, ie. getting anyone who is causing trouble to change first on their own and then wait with the teacher while the others change. Teacher probably stands outside hurrying them along and waiting with those who have finished changing.

Hope it gets sorted.

I always supervised swimming, even in the boys changing room when I took a class, and I got the TA / mum to supervise the others.

It was never a problem before. There is the swimming teacher (actually I think there are 2 swimming teachers) plus the class teacher available.

To me it seems that 15 8 year olds in a changing room with no adult there is asking for trouble.

My friend ended up removing her dd from the school (there was other bullying too), she was in the year above dd.

I know my friend is a teacher and has children athat age in her class. She tends to stay out of the chinging room but is listening at the door for misbehaviour.

Maybe the teacher needs to be closer by.

I helped with swimming and there was always a ya and parent helper in both boys and girls

We only went in to changing rooms if there was a problem - and only after warning the children so that they could cover up if they felt the need. The rest of the time we would stand with our back against the door of the changing room, with the door ajar, so we could hear everything that was going on, but so that we couldn't be accused of anything untoward. Unfortunately, it's the way it was.