Primary school putting kids "in the naughty corner" if they need the toilet

thegirlintheattic

thatgirlsam wrote: »

Yes, a duty of care to your students

Preventing a student from using the loo would breach this, surely?

Most girls start their periods during the first few years of secondary school - preventing them from using the loo during class is horrendous. Its bad enough for them the embarressment and adjustment to puberty and what is happening to their bodies, let them use the flipping toilet if they need to!

Geez, and we wonder why some teenagers have such bad attitudes??

As I said, you get to know which students are genuine and which are not. The genuine ones or ones that ask more than once, are allowed to go. There are two toilets open. It's called using your judgement. They are also signed in and out of class in their logbook - making the judgement even easier when you see a child, with no medical problems, out of lessons 6+ times a week for the toilet.

Claire: Children are missing from the start of class for many reasons - seeing the school nurse, sent home early, in additional support lessons, picked up by another teacher for something. As for missing for a long period of time - yes it gets noticed, but by the time it has been noticed, especially in an active lesson, the child might be nowhere to be found. If I notice a child missing for longer than they should (happened once for a genuine reason), I send a note to the office and the 'on-call' goes around to find them. It's a small school, so I assume it doesn't take that long to lock/unlock them twice a day.

Can I reiterate, what happened in the OPs post was wrong. No child should be punished for asking to go to the toilet.

tw1nklestar

I cover lessons for reception, yr1 and yr2 and with reception class we are on the carpet learning for 15mins max at this point in the year and i encourage the children to use the loo when coming in first thing in the morning, at break time etc - when you are on the carpet learning if the children ask to go to the loo I ask them to try to get through the carpet time but tell them if they are desparate not to ask again but just go - i can be very disruptive with children leaving the carpet in 'learning time' - further up the school I say of course you can go but every minute you are out of class working time then you can spend your break time in equivalent minutes catching up - this tends to stop the time wasters wanting to go and it encourages others to go at the appropriate times.

balletshoes

Nicki wrote: »

I am clearly in a very small minority here

I honestly think, in this scenario, that you are. 6-year olds having to take sole responsibility for training their bodies to always need the toilet only in breaktimes, otherwise they are punished by "cross" teachers/teaching assistants - nope, makes no sense to me.

I also don't know many 6-year olds who are capable of time management enough to know when their homework is due back and take it solely upon themselves to do all their homework, without a parent reminding them at least once.

Sparklyfairy

suki1001 wrote: »

I suspect maybe you put her on the spot. I once confronted our head and it was awful. I realised afterwards she had turned everything around to me and the issue with my daughter got lost. I was genuinely shocked at her reaction and very upset. A couple of weeks later she apologised to me and said she'd handled it completely wrongly and that I'd put her on the spot. I really admired her for doing this and have an awful lot of respect for her.

Is it possible a similar thing happened?

Yes, I did put her on the spot. But I wasn't asking in an accusing kind of way. After speaking to several parents (mainly with older children at the school) this issue has been raised over & over with her so she should be well versed. It seems to cool off, then these harsh measures start again. It's good to hear that the head you dealt with realised her mistake & apologised to you. I'm not sure I'll get an apology, but if I do, I will surely post on here about it!

thatgirlsam

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

As I said, you get to know which students are genuine and which are not. The genuine ones or ones that ask more than once, are allowed to go. There are two toilets open. It's called using your judgement. They are also signed in and out of class in their logbook - making the judgement even easier when you see a child, with no medical problems, out of lessons 6+ times a week for the toilet.

Claire: Children are missing from the start of class for many reasons - seeing the school nurse, sent home early, in additional support lessons, picked up by another teacher for something. As for missing for a long period of time - yes it gets noticed, but by the time it has been noticed, especially in an active lesson, the child might be nowhere to be found. If I notice a child missing for longer than they should (happened once for a genuine reason), I send a note to the office and the 'on-call' goes around to find them. It's a small school, so I assume it doesn't take that long to lock/unlock them twice a day.

Can I reiterate, what happened in the OPs post was wrong. No child should be punished for asking to go to the toilet.

Ah right - so a girl who has been a bit naughty or silly in the past may not be let out to use the loo.. even though she may have just started her period

And i bet you want these teenagers to show YOU respect!

Have you ever wondered why so many teenagers seem to 'switch off' from school?

meritaten

Nicki wrote: »

It's not a barrage of questions, all asked in every situation. I set out all the scenarios possible, and the approaches to each. The most any scenario attracted was 2 questions to a child answerable by a one word or short sentence! I clearly have a bladder of steel, schooled by my barbaric school experience, but that must have stood me in good stead for my tena moments after all those children

I am clearly in a very small minority here, so maybe I am a cruel and unusual parent, but my first reaction in OP's situation would have been to talk to my child about why they weren't going to the loo at break time and try to find strategies to make sure they did.

Well in MY school it was 'please miss can I go to the toilet?' and the invariable answer was 'Yes' or 'can you wait a minute while I explain X?'
we didnt have to have answer multiple questions!

YOU may have a bladder of steel hun, your pupils dont necessarily have the same.

Sparklyfairy

Nicki wrote: »

If a child breaks a rule, whether it is not using the toilet when they are supposed to because they are playing and would rather miss 5 minutes of Mathis than 5 minutes of playtime, or not bringing their homework in because they couldn't be othered to do it, then the normal sanction for the school or class should apply surely?

You chose the school, and the sanction in that school for misbehaviour is apparently sitting in a corner. That's not one I like myself, and not one they used in my kid's school. But if that's what they use for rule breaking in your school, and you've accepted it up to now for other infractions, I don't really understand why it's automatically wrong for this infraction if ok for others.

Surely these are the same thing?

I'm thinking we'll have to agree to disagree, Nicki. This issue isn't a black & white one as you've implied!

thegirlintheattic

thatgirlsam wrote: »

Ah right - so a girl who has been a bit naughty or silly in the past may not be let out to use the loo.. even though she may have just started her period

And i bet you want these teenagers to show YOU respect!

Have you ever wondered why so many teenagers seem to 'switch off' from school?

No, I did not say that. You can tell when you are speaking to someone if they need to go or not. The way a child asks you can tell you a lot - a girl asking to go because of her period is unlikely to be shouting it from the rooftops and will ask in a discreet way - it's happened before and the girl was allowed to go no questions asked. It is quite rare in my school for students to ask for the toilet -because they know the rules. Students need only ask again after being told no anyway, and will be let out. A teacher who lets any child who asks walk out of the classroom maybe respected by the students - for all the wrong reasons.

I wonder what your response would be if a teacher let your child out of class and they got hurt or a student who got let out at the same time as your child bullied your child - would you then change your tune and start asking why someone let your child out unsupervised?

I feel sorry that your view of the teaching profession seems to be that we take pride at humiliating and punishing children, when actually the vast majority of teachers would never think of humiliating a child, and only act in their best interests, which, in some cases, is not letting a child waste 10 mins of a lesson by going to the toilet when they don't need to.

If you are interested in the different ways schools approach this issue then the thread 'Children needing the toilet during lessons' on a popular education forum will give you a broad view.

Nicki

balletshoes wrote: »

I honestly think, in this scenario, that you are. 6-year olds having to take sole responsibility for training their bodies to always need the toilet only in breaktimes, otherwise they are punished by "cross" teachers/teaching assistants - nope, makes no sense to me.

.

I would agree with you if that was anything like my position!

I haven't said and nor has the school that the child can't go to the loo in the approximate 90 minutes between breaks. I have said, as has the school, that the expectation is that the child will go during their break if they need to do so, and that if they ask to be excused for the toilet within a maximum of 20 minutes of coming back from a break, they should be asked why they didn't go during the break. The school says this is a breach of their rules and puts the child in the corner. I'd personally just ask the child why they hadn't followed the rule and not be tougher unless it was a habitual problem with the same child. OP said some kids were asking 10 minutes after a break, and they clearly didn't want to interrupt their play to have a wee in those circumstances but are happy to disrupt carpet time or literacy circle.

thatgirlsam

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

No, I did not say that. You can tell when you are speaking to someone if they need to go or not. The way a child asks you can tell you a lot - a girl asking to go because of her period is unlikely to be shouting it from the rooftops and will ask in a discreet way - it's happened before and the girl was allowed to go no questions asked. Students need only ask again after being told no anyway, and will be let out. A teacher who lets any child who asks walk out of the classroom maybe respected by the students - for all the wrong reasons.

I wonder what your response would be if a teacher let your child out of class and they got hurt or a student who got let out at the same time as your child bullied your child - would you then change your tune and start asking why someone let your child out unsupervised.

I feel sorry that your view of the teaching profession seems to be that we take pride at humiliating and punishing children, when actually the vast majority of teachers would never think of humiliating a child, and only act in their best interests, which, in some cases, is not letting a child waste 10 mins of a lesson by going to the toilet when they don't need to.

Honestly, my view is not that teachers take pride in humiliating children - I do think that locking toilets could result in the humiliation of children, and that is not right imo

If my child got let out and they had an accident, then thats an accident, all this 'blame' culture is not doing us any favours!

If they got bullied while they were let out to use the loo, I don't see that as a good reason to have the toilets locked - locking the toilets is not a good 'anti-bullying' policy is it?