Toilet rules - comps in Kingston and Richmond

[Sirine1708]

Hi, there's a thing I never thought and asked about during school tours - do all secondary schools close toilets and/or forbid to use them during lessons?
I examined school rules for a few schools in Kingston and haven't find anything about it.

Could you please share if it's a thing for Turing House, Orleans Park, Grey Court and The Kingston Academy?

At OP they just have one set of loos open during lessons (the stinky gender neutral ones). Seems to be at teacher discretion whether you can go during lessons but they are generally sensible about it, especially if you have a reason. A few years ago girls had something on their lanyard they could flash if they needed to leave for period reasons; haven’t noticed that on DD’s lanyard for a while so not sure if that system is still in place (seems a bit indiscreet, not sure how it worked in practice??!).

@Ktay I would be miserable having to carry a proof of my periods on a lanyard even as an adult.
Can't imagine why so many schools want to treat pupils like potential criminals :(( was it always like this?

@Sirine1708 it didn’t come across that way tbf, the pastoral care there is brilliant

@Ktay Glad to hear it's not a big issue, which school is that?
A school in another borough locks toilets during lessons and pupil in need after seeking permission has also go get the key. I wonder how it's supposed to work in case of stomach bug.

I wonder how it's supposed to work in case of stomach bug.

if they’ve got a stomach bug they shouldn’t be in school!

most secondary schools don’t allow students to go to the toilet in lessons without a toilet pass. It’s not an issue. You don’t have secondary aged pupils up and down the country having toileting accidents.

@PotteringAlonggotkickedoutandhadtoreregister it's not like stomach issues always start before pupil arrives at school. You don't get to choose the timing.

My sons school (primary) sent letters home to let us know they were strongly discouraging/ challenging any toilet use during lessons and I had to come back to ask them please not to make it difficult for my son if he needed to go because he'd just been diagnosed with a urine infection, which he was obviously very embarrassed about me discussing with them.

@Barleysugar86 same with us :(( some pupils in the class started using toilets only during lessons to avoid queuing and the teacher decided to stop it altogether.

Orleans

Different location to you but in DDs (yr 8) school they have had so many issues (vandalism, vaping, skiving off lessons, picking on younger kids) that since Christmas they have separated yrs 7/8/9 and 10/11/12/13 into different toilet blocks (2 school buildings), and started locking the school doors during lunch and break so that after buying food and eating they have to go outside and can only go in to use the toilet if they ring the bell.
There are no restrictions on going during lessons but they are strongly encouraged to go between lessons or during breaks. Also they are only allowed to use their non allocated toilet block if having a lesson in the other building and need to go during lessons.
There are toilets in the sports block that anyone can use during PE or before/after PE lessons.
I don't necessarily agree with restricting toilet use but also not sure what schools are meant to do, there's only so many times they can fix broken toilets and clean up a mess before they just have to take action. It annoys me because her school has nice toilets which is different to some other schools in our area, they always have hand soap and toilet paper but some kids empty them all over the floor, they have free sanitary products for the girls but they get chucked around and wasted. Secondary school kids are just feral sometimes!

@maw1681 thanks, that's why I've specified the area. The kids from the schools I've mentioned don't look like vandalising the toilets type - they don't curse or shout, their uniform looks relatevely neat, so I'm wondering if the schools in the area still feel they need to protect their toilets :))

lol ok thanks. My daughter goes to a "nice" school in a "nice" area too, most of the kids look "nice". Unfortunately some of them are also feral! Be prepared....

@maw1681 so I shouldn't even trust my own eyes with teens :(( thank you, noted.
But at least now I know what to really ask during school tours. If they are locked out of school sometimes and how's the loo situation. And of course phone use and detentions.

It is the case that, even in the best of schools, there will be pupils who choose to push the boundaries. There’s usually no more that 90 minutes to two hours between breaks, so the majority are able to wait.

Of course there are extenuating circumstances and pupils will be allowed to go then. You’d be amazed at the havoc that can be caused in a school toilet.

Most schools close the toilets until break times for many reasons

Kids arrange to meet up with friends in different classes there at a certain time to smoke

2. we have so many self harmers that its unsafe to have unsupervised access to toilets

It reduced vandalism substantially

4. disruption to lessons

5. no staff on duty so all sorts can happen

In my experience it is because of
A) toilets being vandalised when used during class time
B) students arranging to meet each other in toilets during class time and being away for ages.

The change of toilet rules was done for a reason.

@usernother when did they introduce new rules?

Every school makes their own decision about how to organise toilets. It’s been that way for a long time.

They introduced rules when issues arose and safeguarding became paramount. Ds was year 7 when a year 10/11 boy walked into the cubicle behind Ds and terrified him. CCTV wasn't working properly so they couldn't identify who they were.

Vape alarms are being fitted in school toilets to stop people doing that. Re periods, honestly period knickers have revolutionised this and buy you some time.

My DCs school was highly regarded, pristine uniform, hard on behaviour, great pastoral and I cannot fault it, doesn't mean there weren't arseholes who wanted fights or to mess around, it gets dealt with but the behaviour comes first.

Lots of schools have these rules now, I'd say over the past year or so. Lately I've noticed more and more parents complaining about it on here, and on other SM.

@Sirine1708 I suggest you contact schools directly to ask this because processes change over time. My daughter used to be at Turing, but has now gone to uni. I know they were encouraged to use the toilets at break/lunch, but she never raised this as an issue. The main toilet bank is on the ground floor near the canteen, to cope with peak demand. Other areas, near classrooms, have individual cubicles rather than toilet blocks, so designed for quick occasional use during lessons.

Like others have said, most schools have rules about use during lessons, not just because of vandalism, but also because some children go and hide in toilets ("internal truancy"), or go there to vape. But good teachers use their discretion rather than taking a hard-line approach.

If a child does have a medical condition, and needs to go regularly during lessons, the school does need to know about it so they can be more accommodating.

There is no "look" of students who do those things

My friend told me that at Teddington school they had that " ingenious" idea that children will be allowed only to go to the toilet for 15 min per day. Surely they had some reasons to decide on such drastic measures. They received overwhelming amount of complaint letters from the parents and ceased to continue their " ingenious" concept 🤣

@SometimesYouWinSometimesYouLearn thank you, so it has spread everywhere then.

I subscribe to a debatable idea of installing cameras in the secondary school toilets. Not in the cubicles, of course for privacy reasons. But this would prevent a lot of vandalism as it would be easier to track who did the damage and it also would prevent the violence in the toilets.