Should I speak with school about this?

[mugginsalert]

Hoping some teachers/experienced parents can offer a perspective on this.

My son aged 7 participated in a school event in a public place last week as a member of the very large school choir, with ages 7-18 present. He had to be there at 8.30 and the event started at 12 and ended at 1.

Right at the end of the event a teacher brought him to me (walking past the entire audience) soaking wet as he'd had an accident and was very distressed. It seems the children had to put up their hands to be taken to the toilet, there were few male teachers available to take boys, and his raised hand wasn't seen. My son is shy and would not want to shout out or make a fuss. Anyway, he didn't go before the performance, spent the hour terrified of wetting himself and then did.

I am sad for him as this was very public and he'd been so proud beforehand to participate. He is too upset to talk about it much, worried about being laughed at, and doesn't want to participate again. Worryingly he also doesn't want me to speak to school as he thinks the teachers are all very cross with him.

I want to speak with the school to understand what happened here as I feel that his basic care has not been addressed. I would have expected the school to anticipate that 7 year olds would need to wee after 3 hours of rehearsal, and there would have been some system to ensure all the smaller children went before the performance. I also feel that the school should have anticipated that shy children would not shout about their need for their toilet in front of a large group of older children, and not made everything dependent upon his attracting the attention of the single male teacher who failed to notice his waving hand.

Can anyone with more experience of the primary sector tell me if I am being unreasonable in my expectations of the school here before I speak with them?

I would be inclined to agree with you. An organised toilet break should have been thought about and the children should have gone in groups. Preferably supervised. I would ask the school what their risk assessment/ planning was for this trip. When did they anticipate children having a toilet break? Randomly putting up hands seems a bit too random.

However there seems to be a problem whereby he didn’t make much of an effort to go. Surely friends went so could he not have tagged along? I would ask for the whole story though and what the actual arrangements were supposed to be because he shouldn’t have been
embarrassed like this.

I think that in a "large children's choir" you've got somewhat unrealistic ideas for them looking after the children. I'm sure that if any of the female teachers saw him with his hand up, they would have drawn attention to it, so it's unrelated to being only one male teacher.

Not all 7yos would want to go to the toilet after 3 hours. Both my younger pair regularly didn't go all day at that age. One of whom would be very embarrassed if a teacher had come over and said "you do need to go" or similar.

I chaperone in theatre groups, and we can't legally have more than 12 children per adult, and usually are much less than that. It's still easy to miss that little Billy hasn't been to the toilet and I wouldn't go round asking them individually. It's usually a call of "on in 5 minutes, anyone who needs to go, goes now." I'm dealing with 5-16yos and that's not been an issue.
I did have one one year that I sent to the toilet rather than asking, but that was with parents' permission and after I'd found that otherwise nerves made him desperate the moment the curtain went up.

I think it is not unreasonable to let them know how upset he is, but it's unreasonable to blame the school.
They didn't have a change of clothes, and probably wanted to get an upset boy to his parents asap, hence walking him out to you.
They probably asked the children several times, and probably in a "if anyone needs to go, go with teacher now" way rather than entirely relying on hands up.
If you start making a fuss then the most likely reaction will be in future years they decide that 7yo is too young to take responsibility for in such a large group.

I’m a Brownie leader (girls aged 7-10) and would’ve made a point of reminding them to go in between the rehearsal and the performance (in addition to them asking to go as needed). Hell, I made my Guides (aged 10-14) all go before we went on a 2 hour bus journey!

Yes he should’ve asked to go, and I would work on his confidence to be able to speak up in that sort of situation. But the school should have noticed his raised hand and promoted the children to go at an appropriate time.

Thanks BubblesBuddy. He seems very clear that they weren't allowed to simply leave their seats and follow someone else, they had to wait until a teacher gave them permission. He is very rule abiding/linear thinking and wouldn't have gone against what he had been told.

He also wouldn't have liked attracting attention to himself by shouting/jumping up etc. in front of all the unknown older kids and teachers so I suspect he was too intimidated by the situation to make his needs known once a genteel hand wave or two hadn't worked. I'm assuming there are other kids who would also be shy in this situation so that the school should have anticipated this but maybe he is unusual.

Thanks Witchend and Gumglowworm too!

Witchend I'd hope they wouldn't decide not to include the younger children on the basis of me raising concerns. But they could consider minor changes to their approach to lessen the chance of it happening to someone else next year.

I'm a primary school teacher. In a situation like that I'd have taken all the children on a toilet trip between the rehearsal and the performance. I'd have told those children who insisted that they didn't need the toilet to go and try just in case.

I work in a Primary School and agree with the previous poster. We'd have taken the whole class to the loo during the morning. We'd also have had a snack break and a run around during such a long morning and done a toilet run them too.

Thank you both. This reassures me that I'm not being unreasonable to request a conversation about what happened and to tell them how my son perceived their process.

That is an awful thing to happen to him. I would be very upset if that happened to my DS. I would go in and speak to the teacher if only to ask them to try to make sure other children didn't turn it into a joke. I would try to get my DS to laugh it off if anyone does try to tease him and I would try to look as though it wasn't a big deal. In the grand scheme of things it isn't a big deal but I'm sure it feels like it is.

Speaking as a parent of a shy, quiet child what do you think the school is going to say? I'm not sure they've really done anything wrong. It must be really hard to manage lots of children somewhere like that so used the system easiest and safest for all. They didn't prevent him from going to the toilet but it is hard for shy children to put themselves forward. Maybe you could try to help him with his confidence a bit. Trying to be gentle here but there are 2 sides to every story are you sure your son is not just embarrassed and so shifting the blame a little to the teachers when actually he could have walked up to a teacher and told them he was desperate.

Your ds may have misinterpreted the rules - this will teach him also that sometimes he does need to make a bit of a louder noise if he has needs to be met.

My ds wet himself recently - he was 8 and absolutely mortified. Obviously I spent a lot of time comforting and reassuring him that everyone would have forgotten about it and we all have accidents as kids (I know I did anyway). It was also a lesson in him going to the toilet when the chance arises even if he thinks he doesn’t need to go.

Having chaperoned myself , it would be normal if one child wanted to go to give the opportunity to others of that gender/age group to go at the same time. If he chose not to go beforehand nor was willing to raise his hand it would be difficult for staff to realise.

Poor little chap. Really feel for him.

You say there was only one male teacher, but he wasn't the only one to notice he needed to go. He can let any teacher, regardless of gender, as long as he was able to tell one of them he needed to go?

My ds had an incident of wetting himself in reception, at the lunch hall, that he was told not to leave until he has finished eating his lunch. Turned out they meant he wasn't to leave/walk around his table while eating, going to the toilet was allowed. I just had to tell him that he needed to tell them.

I think if he can't tell anyone at 7, that's not school's problem, that's what you need to work on, as a parent.

Been there with ds aged 7 too, mortified for ds and took frustration out on teacher concerned as she was bang out of order this time.

But I mainly told ds he needs to go to loo when possible so needing to go urgently isn't a regular occurrence and if he is ever in the situation again find a way to make a teacher aware or if needed just get up and go to loo and we'll sort it out with the teacher later. I also told teacher this would happen and I expected ds not to be admonished in any way if he did this and to speak to me instead.

Never had a problem again and it was soon forgotten. Sometimes a 7 year old just needs reminded to always respect teacher instructions but if it comes to a choice of wetting yourself your teacher would much rather know!!

I help out at DC’s school and at events/on trips the teachers have always had regular toilet breaks where everybody has to go.

For that sort of age group, I should add.

Thanks all for your comments. I'm not intending to go and tell school they've done something wrong as such, but more to let them know how their instructions were perceived by my son so they can think about whether they can change anything to better support kids like him. For example, just making it part of a pre-performance routine that all the younger children are taken to the toilet area and given the chance to go rather than ask to go.

I do get that he needs to become more confident to speak up, and we've been working on that so that he's now confident in a classroom setting. I think the differences here were that he was in a new location, with the music teachers not his own class teachers, and in a group with all the older children, and the importance of good behaviour at this event had been highly emphasised. He really struggles with novelty and it had already been a big deal for him to join the choir.

He hasn't wet himself since he was three, so we haven't specifically discussed that. Needless to say we have now had that conversation!

Thank you all for your balanced views!

Please don't get me wrong, I do wish it never happened to your dc, OP.
And I am sure the teachers feel bad about it too.
And I am pretty sure any children can sympathise, since it can happen to any one of them. If not, they are the wrong ones, and need to be tackled, if something like teasing happened because of this.
One good out come for my ds to wet himself in public place was to learn to tell, so it never happened again. And he doesn't remember any of it few years later.

I would ask the school why a proper supervised toilet break wasn’t built in. Every school trip I’ve been on has always had one. (Or two). It’s standard practice to do this and no child has lessons for three hours at school without a built in break. They should have risk assessed the needs of the 7 year olds. If there is no toilet break, children wetting themselves is a risk! It’s reasonable to ask for this and you might find the school has already thought of changing their practice in the future.

This is very sad to hear.
I homeschooled my children for many years, and after reading this, am so glad i did.
I hope you have an opportunity to speak to the school concerning this matter.
Wishing you and your child all the very best.
Adele Jane

I can understand why both you and he are upset. I think you need to deal with the situation with minimum fuss though or it will just turn it into a massive embarrassment for your son. Even though I agree that better care could have been taken, I wouldn't create a fuss purely in order to minimise the impact for your child.
Even though staff should have been more proactive, I would be tempted to almost brush it under the carpet for your son's sake, rather than turn it into some massive incident.
I'd acknowledge his feelings and say Next time, you should etc etc. Give him the skills and confidence to ask for what he needs.
He is not in the wrong and you are not unreasonable to be annoyed but I would say empower your son to speak out with more confidence- and in such situations, a pre- emptive wee is always a good idea.

Thank you all for the additional comments. I spoke with the (very sensible)support staff member who brought him to me, and she said that none of the teaching staff even knew it was him that it happened to, they just know one child needed to leave a bit early (apparently it happens most years). When I mentioned this to my son he relaxed visibly - he'd been so worried that all the teachers knew and were cross with him. So I've decided not to mention it for now as my son hasn't had any negative response from other kids this week and seems to be trying to put it behind him. I feel in two minds as I think their process merits some constructive feedback for the future but my son would rather just move on and perhaps he is wiser than me!

I'm glad it seems to have worked out OK for your son.

Fwiw, I have been a helper on a Year 5 (so aged 9/10) trip to a museum recently. When we arrived, we were shown to a "classroom" and the children had juice and a biscuit. They were encouraged to use the toilet, but no checks were made as to who actually had. We went back to the classroom for lunch - again, teachers encouraged the DC to go to the toilets, but there were no checks that they actually had. We then had an hour and a half trip by train and bus back home!