School toilets.... locked!

Pogs....I talked it through with the children to make sure they understood. We spent a few minutes talking about how important it was to be in the classroom during lessons and why they should go to the toilet during breaks but sometimes, just like grown ups, they still need to go at awkward moments. They're children not automatons.

Gracious me! if you do not discourage children from going to the loo during lesson time there would be kids who go frequently just to avoid working & kids frequently in and out of classrooms disrupts the lessons for other children. Obviously very young children should have free access to toilets but by 6+ most children have good control over their bladders /bowels.

The vast majority of children manage perfectly well. Most schools would respond helpfully to genuine medical needs, either permanent or temporary.

I get really fed up with all the negativity towards schools and teachers as though they simply want to make life hard for kids and families!

Do we know that the closing of the toilets at this school is the only thing being done to reduce incidents of bullying? Maybe this strategy is part of a bigger programme?

Rose

They have no choice but to hold it.

Hells bells I'm an adult but I have to use a loo if I'm out and about, I admire your pelvic floor muscles. I wouldn't want to be told if I was busting I had to wait.

What about Oldgreymares point that a sec mod school has locked Loo's. Don't you think a poor kid having her period should be able to access a loo.

It must be me but I see going to the toilet as a basic necessity and whether it's children in schools, patients in hospital, elderly in a home when you need to go you should not be told to hold it.

POGS you don't have to be incontinent to get information from ERIC. It's about getting access to a toilet so that she doesn't suffer bladder and bowel damage from holding on that could lead to incontinence. They visit schools and might be able to make suggestions on improving the situation

I agree with your comment about toilets being a basic necessity. They are. After all 100% of the population is forced to go to the loo several times a day in order to keep our bodies healthy!

ROSEQUARTZ it's not good for children to hold on - or anyone come to that - because their bladder and bowel are developing. You can 'train' your bladder and bowel up to a point but there are times when needs must. Some children - and adults - limit their fluid intake which is certainly not recommended. Also urgency has been shown to affect concentration - not good in school and certainly not good for drivers by the way! Also girls don't control over their periods!

Access to toilets reduces NHS costs - something that is rarely considered!

I totally agree with you Penstemmon. Some kids, especially those in secondary schools, organise themselves to meet others from other classes in the toilets during lesson time to have a quick smoke etc or they wish to disrupt the lesson as much as they can. If teachers allow any child who asks out of the room to go to the toilet mayhem can follow. Teachers usually know who the genuine ones are but to allow all and sundry out just because they ask to go to the toilet is asking for trouble.

POGS schools start at about 8:45 and kids usually have access to loos before or as school starts, break time is about 10:30 with lunch at 12:00-12:30 and the afternoon stating at 1:00/1:30 and ending at 3:30.

Kids are not ever in class for much more than 2 1/2 hours at a time. I would have thought that by 9 that is a reasonable gap from one pee to another!

Re periods ..if a young girl/woman is having a bleed that needs her to change her sanitary protection more often than every two and a half to three hours I would think she has a problem. I do not ever recall asking to leave a class for the toilets as a child. I do not recall my two daughters having a problem at school with needing to pee or with periods.
The youngest got into trouble for not hanging up her coat at primary school until I pointed out she could not reach the peg..she was diddy!

Penstemmon

"I do not ever recall asking to leave the class for the toilets as a child. I do not recall my two daughters having a problem at school with needing a pee or with their periods"

Good for you!

I'm b---gg- --d if I can remember or even 'know' what either myself or daughter did when it came to wanting a pee some 50/30 respectively years ago whilst attending school. What a marvellous memory .

Can schools actually stop children going to the toilet? It is absolutely ridiculous and I'm sure it is not allowed.

At the school where I do volunteer reading, the children are allowed to go to the toilet provided they ask first - and allowed to get a drink of water. I should imagine that if some children start to do this on a regular basis (I haven't seen this occurring) the teacher would have a word with them. The teachers maintain discipline and good manners but they do this in a very gentle way and it is a very happy school.

I agree with Flickety that, in my experience anyway, if for some reason a person doesn't have access to a toilet, this often creates a strong need to go. I would think rules like this for children could put them off going to school or make them unduly anxious.

I suspect that some children just ask to go to the loo because they are bored whereas some others may genuinely have a "call of nature". What I remember from my childhood was an absolute horror about using the school loos which I visited as rarely as possible, so would arrive home in the afternoon bursting for a pee. Surely they have improved since then.

I remember going to toilet during lesson times at my primary school because in winter we had to go to the cloakroom to put on our hats, coats and gloves, leave the building, walk the whole width of the playground, enter the cold, dark toilet block, find the cubicle where the water in the toilet wasn't frozen (if we were lucky), avoid the huge spider that hid behind the cistern, scratch our bits using the izal toiletpaper, return across the playground, remove coat etc and finally get back to class where if we were lucky the teacher would let us sit near the radiator to thaw out.

I don't believe some children can 'hang on' just as some adults can't. As a teacher you very quickly suss out who is in genuine need and who is a change of scenery seeker.

I smoked at secondary school. When I was in the sixth form I often met up with my fellow smokers to enjoy a mid morning ciggie. Everyone knew when and where we did it. There was an unspoken acceptance that we would use that particular small toilet block and not do it in breaks when younger children might be around. Remember this was the time when the staff room was cloudy with smoke all the time so it was just smokers giving other smokers somewhere to go.

We didn't vandalise the toilets and we didn't smoke anywhere else in the school. Bullying will take place regardless of whether or not the toilets are locked. Locking toilets and making the children ask for a key sounds ok on paper but would you like to have to get permission to leave a room then go to an office which could be in another building to ask for a key so that you could go to the toilet. Imagine an employer bringing in such a rule. All hell would quite rightly break loose. If it's not acceptable for an adult then it's not acceptable for a child/young person.

Penstemon. Do you call the situation that POGS described, or/and the one OldGreyMare describes as a genuine medical need?

vampirequeen I have similar memories to yours about the school I moved to in Romford when I was about 9 - having to go to a toilet "block" outside in the playground. The worst bit was the humiliation of having to ask the teacher for toilet paper - two sheets of that shiny stuff was the ration.

Re toilets, I too thought how completely unacceptable it would be for adults to be treated in such a way.

We had a marvelous selection of toilets at my Secondary School, and even way back then it was a place for "bunking off." I spent many maths lessons in one, sometimes alone and sometimes with a friend.

The school were on to this and had a system of spot checks. A friend was found reading a comic in the loo instead of going to a class. We all thought he was a bit of a hero to be honest. (teenagers!)

Why not bring spot checks into use at schools now, or are the schools too short staffed. Maybe a caretaker could do the rounds on a regular basis?

I don't remember anyone asking to go to the loo during class times which lasted 40mins and as we moved about the school all the time, there was plenty of time to "go" if you needed to."

It would be awful for any child or young adult to feel trapped and not able to get to a toilet easily or have to fetch a key. Everything connected to schools seems to be getting soooo complicated.

I do remember a girl wetting herself once and it was awful for her. Don't know what went wrong there but I think she was too embarrased to ask "to be excused." No child should have to go through that.

The girls I taught in Africa were a bit shy about calling a spade a spade and if they needed to use the loo, they would ask to 'go for a short walk' which confused me when I first arrived there!

At my last school, where there were 1600 students, the loos were never locked. However, throughout the day, members of the Senior Leadership Team were assigned walkabout duties, which involved regular checking of all the loos, as well as being on hand for emergencies and disciplinary issues. (It was very good for one's fitness, too!)

I was a prefect when I was in the 5th form (Year 11 nowadays). Each class took it in turn but we were the best....at least until the adults found out why. We never had any trouble. Kids behaved in the corridors and toilets. We were constantly being held up as an example to other prefects. Well until they discovered that we kept order through corruption.

No one was ever reported for smoking in the toilets provided they chipped a ciggie into the kitty. Corridors were busy but no one was ever kicked out provided they didn't get stupid and chipped in some sweets for the kitty. Kids without sweets and ciggies were still allowed to stay in. We didn't penalise anyone for being skint. It wasn't extortion in the normal sense . We got away with it for two terms but during the third term someone snitched. Everyone lost out. The kids had to spend more time outside, the smokers couldn't have a quick drag in the toilets at break, more kids were put on report and staff had to deal with more discipline issues. We were stripped of our privileges and our form tutor was so disappointed.

Ah happy days

Pogs if there had been a pant wetting situation I think I would have remembered it! If I had been or the kids had been anxious I would have remembered it! If there had been friends who were upset I would have remembered it. As I do not recall anything like that re toilets I guess that almost everyone was OK! I was NOT being smug.
I have also worked in primary schools for 35+ years and never been overwhelmed with 6+ yrs kids who have wet/soiled themselves except in exceptional circumstances usually due to a one off tummy bug! The one case I recall I as the head cleaned the little chap up because the TAs said they could not do it as the poo made them feel sick

anno i had a chid in my class who referred to needing a poo as 'Need to go and think' confused me for a while!

I had a child who constantly asked to 'go outside'. Of course I told him he couldn't go outside until playtime. Then he wet himself. I explained to his mum that he hadn't asked to go although he said he had. She laughed and said her mother used to live in a house with an outside toilet and 'go outside' was the phrase they'd used for going to the toilet. The phrase had stuck and the family still used it. It hadn't crossed her mind to tell me.

I remember coming over faint in a German class [Lower VIth so I would have been 15] in which there were about 10 of us, because of period pains. Funnily enough it was the boys who were more sympathetic and helpful than the girls! One of the boy's father was a doctor so he reckoned he knew it all. I would have been allowed to go to the loo if I'd needed it.

I visited the girls loos on a school reunion about 10 years ago - and they were really nice; not like they were in my day!

Penstemmon

Nobody has said the children have wet their pants.

Did you, your children or any school you worked at lock the Loos or refuse children permission to go? That is the question being raised!

I think your post was a little more specific than you are now portraying it but this is hardly a topic to fall out over.

Many thanks for the understanding and supportive responses.
My DGN is a lovely, bright, sensitive girl. I am concerned that she has become anxious about going to school altho' she does seem a little more settled now she has her 'pass'.
I think school loos should be accessible at all times with measures taken to ensure that the need to lock them be obviated.

Yes there were clear rules in many schools about not going to the cloakroom during learning time (primary) and i know at my secondary school you just did not ask! It was the same for my DDs. I have no idea if any school toilets were locked, certainly not in any primary schools I know of.
I cannot imagine any school deciding to lock cloakrooms during teaching time unless they felt it was absolutely necessary and without due warning to the students in the school.

Many schools have had toilets redesigned so that they are directly off a corridor rather than cubicles in a cloakroom specifically to prevent inappropriate behaviour happening out of sight.

www.coombegirlsschool.org/Mainfolder/Documents/Supporting-Pupils-With-Medical-Needs-letter.pdf This is a letter from the website of the school I attended in the 60s! Thought it might be of interest to people concerned that schools are not taking account of students medical needs.

Maybe somebody has beaten me to it, but the toilets at my primary school were outside and frequently frozen- we learned bladder control at a very early age! At my secondary school , the "new " building enjoyed the luxury of indoor plumbing but many lessons were in the " old" building and again the loos were of the outside variety. You had to really need to go to use those although at break the conditions didn't deter the dedicated smokers!