Teen girls, periods & toilet access - how does it work for your daughter?

[LivingInaBuiltSite]

So I have many issues with DD’s right now, this is just one of them.

DD is 13, started her periods approx 6 months ago.

Her school previously had 100min lessons (x3 a day), not really allowed to go to the toilet during lessons.
When she started her periods, she found out herself from her Pastoral Lead that she could request a toilet pass every time she had a period so she could access the toilets during lessons by showing this pass to her teachers. Obviously this meant she had to go to the pastoral person, say she had her period, get the pass. And everyone in lessons would pretty much know too. But at least she could go.

Now school are trialing 60min lessons (which I totally agree with and thought the 100mins was crazy - esp as an ex-teacher and I briefly taught there years ago). This means the gap between breaks is now 120minutes though. Allocated 30secs to change lessons (separate issue!) and definitely not allowed the toilet in that time.

So, back to pastoral team to ask for toilet passes but…now the pastoral team only accept written paper slips for requests for anything. The woman has put her hand up to DD and said no you can’t come in to talk to me, you have to submit a slip. Once Dd submitted a slip about bullying (another huge separate issue) and the lead said she didn’t get it for a month. Not going to work for the toilet pass!

DD is pretty capable and has spoken to the SENCo team lady who is lovely (DD has dyslexia so knows her from that and collecting laptops during the school day, not sure how that’s going to work in the 30secs either!). This lady has said she will sort a permanent toilet pass for DD but it hasn’t materialised yet.

How do your DD’s manage at their schools? What is normal? I will be contacting school anyway about other issues but want to know what’s standard before I raise this too.

i do not normally contact school I would like to point out. I’m an ex teacher I want to leave school to get on with it. But I go from dormant to some sort of raging mama bear and I can feel it rising!

I genuinely don't know what people want us to do.
These people should come into an average secondary school, just for a day.
They have absolutely no idea.

@IsoldeWagner , despite our leafy exterior, there is a lot of vaping and that's something the school can address. Perhaps it's in their (self-suggested) Ofsted targets? 'Will reduce vaping by X %' so they have to hammer it? So they're locking the loos at all times to meet that target.
I was so impressed that your school invested in san-pro. I know period poverty is a thing (in our leafy city as just as much as anywhere) and I totally support any efforts to address that. I'm just horrified that the supplies your school generously provided were used to destroy expensive equipment (we all know plumbers and plumbing are not cheap). Sadly, no good deed goes unpunished ...
I have often asked a pupil (boy or girl) can you wait? But I worked at a prep school where loos were never locked.

She just needs to go at break and lunch. All women of menstruating age have been managing this since time began! Why are you even involved?

@tarheelbaby we still offer free sanpro - me and 2 other KS Heads keep it in our office, though. We have a lot of poverty, a high number on FSM, PP, migrants, refugees, looked after children.
I fought to keep the free sanpro. We still get it rammed down sinks, but it causes less damage if they only get a couple of items.