Does my daughter need a toilet pass?

[BeFunnyAmberPlayer]

My daughter who is in year 8 has told me that toilets are locked all day and are only opened at break but they are too busy and she can’t find the time to go. She has stopped eating or drinking at school as she doesn’t want to have to use the toilet but this is really stressing her. She wears 2 pads on her period because she can’t change it at school and I wanted to email the school asking for a toilet pass but she told me I will be denied as she doesn’t have any medical conditions. Do you think she needs one?

Agree. Presumably you have contact with pastoral support or SEND team about her difficulties? They’ll be the people who can get her a toilet pass, if appropriate. If you ask at the office, you’ll likely be told no.

I've done the puking in a bin bag lining a bin in your stock cupboard whilst suffering morning sickness. Not a chance I'd get near a toilet 🤣

I stayed on the pill to regulate my periods as long as humanly possible to avoid the leak situation

Oh my god, I did the same! In my case, a whole pile of exercise books had to go in the bin as well!

So she does have a medical condition. That should be enough for a toilet pass.

I work in a nice school. You only need a handful of students and they cause thousands of pounds of damage. Doors smashed, toilets smashed, faeces smeared everywhere or put in the soap dispenser, vapes flushed down the toilet, fights, intimidation. We struggle to afford glue sticks and repairing student caused damage is crippling. You also have dozens of students who use the toilet as an excuse to get out of lesson and then disappear for 20 minutes. That's a third of their learning time.

We do things slightly differently in that toilets are locked between lessons and open during. Students with a pass can use the toilets at any time and if they have a real need, their pass is for one of 3 accessible, locked toilets used only by that group (they have a key). Other use in lesson time is via a pass held by the teacher and we log every use. Seems draconian yes but it helped us to know who was causing the damage and who was lesson avoiding. I use my discretion when allowing students to use the toilet during lessons. Ask quietly or politely, nearly always a yes. Whisper "watch this, I'm going for a vape" to your mate and then yell "Miss I need a huge shit" across my classroom? Probably, no.

Yes, but if the same happened to a girl in my class, I would also come up with a solution for her.

It is just a guess though, isnt it. Because that does happen because staff in schools often do not have time away from the students and also do not have adequate access to toilets. Ive known staff have to go home to change. This is the issue that needs addressing, not just giving a handful of students a pass. The buildings are no longer fit for purpose. And this has been created through persistent underfunding. And bad design by people who do not work in schools.

How would better building design stop students ducking out of lessons to meet up in the toilets? Some schools have got vape detectors in their toilets now to try to combat that, but kids just piling into a cubicle to have a chat/go on their phones out of the eye of teachers? (Before you even get into drug taking/having sex/vandalism).

I have a locker with 2 full changes of clothes. My perimenopausal periods are so heavy that I can need to change my underwear and pad and tampon after each lesson. We have 2 cubicles for our entire staff. You can bet your bottom dollar that I've had to ask any member of available staff to sit with my class while I fix a developing and embarrassing problem.

I also make sure that no girl under my care is faced with same problem.

Are the vaping students using vanilla & snowberry ones? or the full fat nicotine ones?

I ask because I know of a little boy [?year 2/3] who was causing mayhem in school who was heavily using his mum's nicotine one at home and then in nicotine withdrawal in class

Appreciate that's an extreme situation but is nicotine craving contributing to bad behaviour in school?

No. Kids have always smoked, cigarettes in the past. If nicotine withdrawal was a factor, then behaviour would have always been as bad as it is now.

The positioning of the toilets in schools could go a long way in making them accessible and also supervised. I visited a school on a different country where the toilets were directly behind the student services work area. Students could leave lessons to go to the toilet, they were signed in so there was a record. They had issues with toilet paper being used to stuff sinks so they had at that point started handing it to them on the way in, but that was a short term measure to make the point. Anyone taking too long was checked on as the staff were already there. They also had lots of cubicles. But the design of the school was much better too. Ours our buildings with continuous add ons with no flow.

We had to home educate because of this exact issue - even with a toilet pass the system was not working

Apart from building design, that's also an issue of staffing as you are paying people to monitor toilets and hand out toilet paper.

I can't believe people are saying it's acceptable that toilets are locked during lesson times - you can't always just go on demand during breaks/lunch and especially for young girls who may be suddenly starting their period, or get caught with a heavy flow - I think that's ridiculous!!

Which is a perfectly reasonable opinion. However, you then need to come up with a cost-free solution to the problem facing some schools of toilets being vandalised so that they can't be used either in or outside of lesson time.

Another school with locked toilets here. Students with medical needs have passes and there are facilities available, but the are escorted. It's also a safeguarding issue - if a child has "gone to the toilet", where actually are they?

Staff also cannot use the toilet whenever they like. We currently have 5 unisex toilets for all staff, as the women's is out of order. I have spent days with cardigans tied round my waist because of an unexpectedly early/heavy period. I cannot leave the room to go to the loo...

@Harrumphhhh - no, we had phones then. I left school in 2005. We just didn't behave like this!

I assumed school toilets would be fitted with vape detectors and their phones taken off them at the beginning of the day, is that not the case?

Couldn't you just send them with some kind of beeper like they have in restaurants so it's set to be hella loud and annoying after 10 mins so they're incentivised to be quick

It's not acceptable. But the reason for doing it is vandalism, skiving, vaping etc. Unless parents are going to protect the toilets during lesson time what choice do schools have?

Vape detectors are expensive, but becoming more common.

Taking 1000+ phones at the beginning of the day and redistributing at the end is a huge workload, so no, doesn't generally happen.

Those beepers would instantly be used to disrupt lessons.

I think she could benefit from some counselling sessions, OP. It’s not sustainable for her to be this anxious around such an everyday thing, or being in a room with more than a few other kids. A counsellor can help her develop strategies to cope with anxiety. She needs to be able to use the toilet at break times and if she is hydrated enough, then it will happen.

My daughter was exactly the same, she ended up with quite extreme Shy bladder syndrome (paruresis) which for a period of time took over her life. The school just didn’t get it, yet it’s a recognised medical condition, some days she would call me in tears because she was so desperate to go. It took a few weeks, lots of bombarding the head about the facts of the condition to get her a pass. It was all so completely unavoidable and it took her a good 2 years to be able to pee in a busy toilet or if someone was waiting behind her in a queue. Planes still cause her an issue and you can see her desperately looking for a quiet period to go because the thought of not being able to empty her bladder causes her massive anxiety, thankfully this is the only lasting effect from something caused directly by the schools ridiculous system, although I still carry a catheter with me to this day just in case (dr trained me to do it). So from what I have learnt create a fuss now, get her the pass.

I am going to play devil's advocate now. Does it really matter if kids go to the toilets to vape? They are obviously vaping anyway to have them in the first place so if a single student leaves a class during a lesson to go to the toilet and they vape at the same time why is that such a big issue? It has happened for decades. In the 80s people smoked in the toilet, everyone obviously knew as you could smell it a mile away.

It just seems another excuse to stop other students using the toilets if they are needed. I am sure it is a very very very small minority actually vandalising the toilets, that does need stamping out but ruining it for everyone else and making students ill from not eating and drinking seems to be a much larger majority but schools don't give a shit about them, I assume because it doesn't actually cost them any money to fix, shame they don't care about health and wellbeing as much.

How can I teach a student to solve equations if they are in the toilets vaping with their mates instead of in my lesson?

And if you say 'oh, but you only let a single student go at a time', then they just hook up with kids who are in other classes. They arrange meet-ups.

Incidentally, one of the reasons for long queues for toilets at break times is kids vaping in them.