Mixed sex changing in primary

[vickyborg]

Hello! Not posted here before, but following a letter I received this morning I thought I'd pop by.

I have three kids. My eldest is 8, 9 in September, and she's about a year into puberty. We went out and bought her first crop tops and training bras a couple of months back. School's response to their dad talking to them, was to allow her and a friend to change separately to the other kids in the class for PE.

That's fine for mine. She doesn't really get picked on, and she doesn't let any comments made by the other kids get to her. Yet, I can see kids being self conscious about the whole thing, which can't really be helped by putting them in a separate room, making them feel even more different. Especially as kids seem to be so body conscious at far too young an age these days.

I ended up writing to my local MP, not just about our school but the practice throughout the country. I know our school has the facilities to have the girls and boys get changed in separate locations. To be honest, I can't see why any school wouldn't be able to for Year 3 kids. Even if it was a temporary partition/curtain in the classroom.

Anyway, so success for me. The local MP has contacted Michael Gove, and a chap at the local council, and our school has changed their policy.

Michael Gove has stated that decisions such as these are best made at school level, as they know their pupils and facilities best.

Really, I'm popping by to let any parents out there, who are also unhappy with mixed sex changing, know that there are people willing to listen to your concerns and help change the policies at your local schools.

How on earth are they staffing that? As a Headteacher in a primary school I don't have spare staff to supervise girls and boys in KS2 getting changed separately - its not beneficial to their education so I couldn't justify an LSA.
In all honesty, I don't see any need for them to change separately as long as its handled sensitively by the class teacher and expectations are set out.
If this were in AIBU I'd say yes!

In our primary school the girls get changed in the classroom and the boys get changed in the corridor.

When I was a kid you did it in knickers and vest I the I rants and all got changed together in the classroom in junior school.

It was fine.

'in the infants'

Really, HHG? You don't see the need for some ks2 children to be given the opportunity to change for PE in a single-sex environment?
As a teacher, I fully understand the staffing issues but I would never allow a young person in the midst of puberty to be put in a position of feeling ashamed or awkward whilst in my care. I'm afraid I couldn't guarantee two nice, separate changing areas but certainly would always ensure there was somewhere safe and private for one sex or the other.

there is a girl that has just left my dds primary who was 5ft 6 and had an adult figure

there are girls in the same class who look like very young children

it's hard enough at that age without everyone whispering about you (plenty of time for that in high school)

our school also has the stance of -well if they are bothered they can change in the toilets -queue great long line of girls waiting to use the toilet to change (and the odd boy too)

I never realised that this was an issue until my eldest dc started school, and I can see it being an issue soon for some of the girls in his class. He's about to go into Y4.

The reason it never crossed my mind is because in my old junior school we had proper separate changing rooms for PE, but only one class teacher, and I don't remember it ever being a problem. Although perhaps that was because in three of my four years there I had a male teacher, so that probably meant the boys were the ones being supervised. I can't actually remember a teacher being in the girls' changing room with us. However, it is also possible that the two classes in each year did PE together with a teacher of each gender supervising the appropriate group of kids and I've just forgotten. It was over thirty years ago!

I have since realised we had such good facilities because our junior school was originally a secondary modern, so would have had to have proper facilities for children aged 11 - 16. Obviously, only ever having gone to the one junior school I just assumed that all junior schools had such facilities, so it was a bit of an eye-opener to realise that it was actually an anomaly!

Our school has a non-problem here, in that classes go out together for PE, so the boys from one class go to the other classroom, whilst the girls make e opposite journey.

Not all schools have such convenient timetabling. But those display room-divider thingies can easily be pulled out to provide basic screening between boys and girls within on classroom and with only one adult standing by them.

I think boys and girls should be changing separately by year 4, and think dire warnings of need of costly additional staff are scaremongering when there are other readily available options.

Girls change in the Library ( which is accessed through my classroom!) boys stay in the class, the mobile whiteboard is pulled across the glass door!
Children are trusted to change sensibly, I tend to stay in the class with the boys but "busy" myself in my cupboard with the door open and bang on the library door if the noise rises above a dull roar!
I have yr 5/6 and there is NO WAY they should be changing together.
Yr 3/4 have a similar routine ( the library is accessed from their room too!)
R/1 and 1/2 change together ( except for swimming where we have seperate changing rooms)

At our school up to Y2 change together. Y3 has 2 classes and the boys change in one classroom, the girls in the other.
Years 4,5 and 6 change in the boys / girls cloakrooms which are off limits for the opposite gender.
There is such a wide age range for when girls start puberty they should not have the embarrassment of changing in front of boys.

At our school we onl;y have 18 infants (R to Y1).We hire the village hall for PE . The reception children get changed in the hall with the teacher, whilst the Y1/2 boys go into the mens cloakroom and the girls go into the Ladies.

As far I know DDs school send Y5/Y6 girls into the spare classroom, boys stay put.
As for supervision I think she just hovers in the corridor and smocks her nose in where ever is noisiest.

I know some Y4 girls would like to do the same, but school wasn't happy with letting Y3/Y4 class have the same freedom.

I don't know why, perhaps they feel they'd need closer supervision.

Dd1's school they change separately in year 6.
Her teacher this year was male, as was the games teacher. So the girls were changing unsupervised. Hence a lot of catty behaviour from the girls, particularly towards those who were developped. There were not spare female teachers to cover every change. Several of the girls said they would much rather change with the boys-who never commented on the girls, supervised, than put up with the nasty comments from the other girls.