Where do we stand on girls not being allowed to go to the loo?

[JandamiHash]

DD is 11 in year 7 and I reckon she will be staring her periods soon. Lots of signs and some cramping. Shes really nervous because her lessons are an hour long and they aren’t allowed to go to the toilet. She says everyone is always told no.

My periods were so heavy when I started mine aged 14 that I would have leaked everywhere if my lessons had been any longer than the 35 minutes. Even now when I get my period one days 1 and 2 I need to change sanitary towel at least once an hour.

What is the consensus about this? DD is my eldest so secondary is all new to me. Is this standard? I do get that gen school will have piss takers but do they think about girls in these situations at all?

Well quite.

This is my response to the other poster I was replying to:

I agree with what you’re saying. I am an ex teacher myself. Education has become a political issue with far too much government power. One of the problems is though that too many SLTs (& teachers) don’t speak up. They go along with the ridiculous nonsense related to attendance, league tables and inspections like a bunch of sycophants. I do not understand why more HTs don’t speak up about why so much of modern education just is not working.
I appreciate this would take guts and bravery but until nothing changes nothing changes. SLTs in schools need to stick their necks out more for children.

It's really frustrating.
My DD (13) was given a bad mark for going to the toilet before class and arriving two mins late, she said she had to go as was on day 2 of her period and said she knew if she went to class first she would be told to wait.
I'll raise it with school if they actually say no to her asking to go to the toilet.

Also OP if it helps, period pants are incredible and my DDs experience with heavy periods has been different to mine at school, the pants hold a lot, she's barely leaked at all and is much more clued up than I was about self care and manages really well. I'm sure your DD will be ok.

The reality is the toilets are vandalised, students end up vaping / smoking, self harming and ODing and even sexual assault on the extreme end.
So the only reason for doing this then is that it's the students fault in the first place. What is going so wrong with society that some students do this and why hasn't anyone worked this out. And that's just the girls!

My children go to schools where they can go to the loo whenever they want (primary school and upper school, not uk) and everyone is getting a decent education, the corridors are perfectly safe, and I haven't heard of any issues in the school toilets in 8 years I've had children in school.

In the UK the toilet issue is a metaphor for what is going wrong in the education system.

I do not condone the vaping, vandalism etc but until the government and SLTs address the root cause of this issue (disengagement) it will continue.

That's quite an imagination. No the school didn't ask for a GP letter and they let his teachers know, they said they were ok with him going during lessons if he needed to. My son was a bit embarrassed about the whole thing so I don't know if he ever did or not. He put off saying anything to us at all because he was embarrassed and by that time the infection was quite embedded I guess. Boys apparently are less likely to get a UTI but it's more likely to become chronic than in girls when they do because of the longer passageways boys have down there. It took 3 months to finally clear that infection with increasingly longer and stronger doses of antibiotics. Anyway I stand by my original message- I don't think its humane to deny toilet access to any gender, any gender can have a uti or an upset stomach or something that means they may need to go quickly.

It would depend on the school system and layouts, but if there is space there could be a desk stationed outside toilets for SLT to be on a duty rota whilst doing their admin work. Toilets open close to SLT offices if that’s an option. An active corridor duty that actually works to accompany pupils to and from toilets. The best system I have seen was in a school in which the toilets were not cubicles, but individual rooms on a side part of the corridor with sinks outside, open plan. Of course that was a purpose built school which had a lot of investment but its design was incredibly well thought-out.

So the school said he could go during lessons but he chose not to?

failing to see how you can blame the school for this?

He stood up for us. He went to my year head and said ‘use of a toilet is a basic human right. My daughter was in need of compassion and understanding and not punishment and that punishment exercise will not be done. She is asking there but out of politeness but if in future she really requires to go I have told her to go.’

i was a good student and rarely went during lessons but there was no way I could avoid it.

"I do not condone the vaping, vandalism etc but until the government and SLTs address the root cause of this issue (disengagement) it will continue."

Didn't forget deprivation. Many if the children who engage in this behaviour have horrific home lives and backgrounds and SLT can do nothing about that

And that’s reasonable.

bit in your post, you said he kicked off or something similar which is not reasonable.

What? He blew his top and he did but he went in and was icily polite . My Dad knew how to handle things like this as he worked in roles where conflict resolution was important. When I told him he went off that he was sick of teachers being dicks to kids as it was tantamount to bullying and an abuse of power in many cases and he was going down there asap to get it sorted. However he knew that wasn’t going to work face to face but his tone had the slight edge to show that he was quite serious. My dad was quite scary when he got angry.

That’s my point.

i dint agree that he should be going in to school and being so angry that he was quite scary to the teachers.

he could have put his point across without scaring the staff. That’s awful actually.

No- I said I don't know if he did ask to go or not if he felt that urgency in class? I hope he did. But I didn't ask, I know he wanted a bit of privacy back.
The school did say he could go during lessons once I was aware he had the UTI and I let the school know, but he'd obviously had it a while by then. It's an embarrassing thing for anyone to talk about. I do wonder if holding the wee made the infection as bad as it got. I think knowing he wasn't allowed to go that he was sitting there quietly and occasionally letting out little bits of wee in class as I had noticed a wee smell on his washing which was how we ended up having the conversation and I realised something was wrong. I've had a few UTI's in my life and I know that urgency feeling- I am so grateful I can just use the bathroom as I need at any job I've ever had. I would be mortified telling my boss why I need to use the bathroom.
I'm not blaming the school as such- I said I didn't like restrictive bathroom policies ever. I think it should be free for people to leave as needed unless there are reasons to think someone is abusing the right and it should be addressed then like any potential issue like absence.

Fully agree.
We have such a huge class divide now in the UK and such high levels of poverty this issue needs to be addressed holistically.

A while back someone on here said that we now have a “semi feral underclass” and I think that person is right. It’s tragic. But the government seem clueless. They are rolling out things like AI in education and free breakfast clubs for all without addressing the ROOT cause of the issues families face such as sky high cost of living, both parents having to go out to work to even cover basics, family fragmentation, out of date curriculum and school system, disenchanted and disengaged young people.

They can hammer home the importance of an education until they are blue in the face, but if kids can’t engage with it it’s useless.

This. This is a reasonable way of handling toilet breaks. And some people ask them to leave their phones behind, though I don’t because I don’t particularly want to be responsible for their property, even for a few minutes.

@Natsku what's the point of your post? This is a post about what sounds like a typical UK school.

No doubt schools in other countries have quite different issues and problems.

You said that schools that are overly lenient with toilets would have certain issues. My post was to point out that that is not necessarily true. I am sure there are also schools in the UK that are more lenient with toilets without developing these issues that you fear.

I disagree. I don't think it's at all easy to tell if they really need to go. Teenagers are often pretty good actors. And as soon as you start letting some go but not others, on the grounds that you believe some are genuine and some aren't... it's a minefield.

So what do you actually do, then? Surely it’s not just a blanket ban with absolutely no exceptions. That seems like a much bigger minefield given the inevitability that, over the course of years, some students will have issues with periods, upset stomachs etc. I don’t know any teachers that do that, and the ones I hear about are the ones getting in trouble because students have accidents in class.

You use your judgement. There are some kids who manage to go 7 years without needing the toilet during a lesson.
There are some who can't do a day. No medical issues. They tend to be the ones who ask as soon as they come in and are always desperate. Often they're the ones who then make a massive fuss about needing the toilet too.
Then there are the ones who never ask, so when they do, it's genuine so you let them. But then you get the 'well I'm desperate too and you never let me. "
Or
"I need the toilet now."

I often wonder how they cope on journeys longer than an hour, or when they're out roaming with mates.

They're not issues I fear, @Natsku, they're actually happening every day where I work.

Sounds like you're in another country, where students are more engaged with learning.

Perhaps students are more respectful when they are treated with more respect?