Toilet rules create anxiety over periods, say school pupils
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kv8vxzn99o
by DamascusNuked
Toilet rules create anxiety over periods, say school pupils
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kv8vxzn99o
by DamascusNuked
34 comments
She’s home schooled as she cannot go to the toilet when she likes? How’s she going to get a job? Teachers can’t go whenever they want
Edit – they are kids. They will look for any excuse to get out of class. If it’s urgent they can go.
Edit- clearly many of you guys haven’t been in a school in a while.
> “Sometimes we would have to ask in front of the class and we would be denied, sometimes we would have to tell them why we needed to go to the toilet,” she said.
> “It was hugely embarrassing, you would toy with yourself [as to] whether you had the confidence to put up your hand and ask. It’s a big feeling of potential judgement.”
> Holly said she and her friends had “bled through our underwear”, adding: “One of my friends bled through onto a chair and had to do a walk of shame. It was one of her first periods and people made fun of her for weeks.”
Aside from any potential issues regarding students behaviour in toilets, and I know that in lots of places behavioural issues have gotten worse since COVID for a variety of reasons, there surely must be something that can be done to deal with the stigma around menstruation. I get that boys this age are often immature and plenty of kids in general this age will make fun of you for pretty much anything and everything, but even when I was at school it was generally understood that menstruation was just a biological thing that happened, and the menstrual cycle itself was part of our GCSE curriculum for biology – there was always *some* focus on making sure, through these biology lessons, sex ed and PSHE lessons, and through teachers trying to stamp down on bullying, that everyone knew making fun of periods wasn’t acceptable, and I went to a catholic school that until something like 2015 still had rules explicitly banning any “homosexual activity”, in a pretty solidly conservative area.
Even when I was at university I had a friend of mine, more than a few times, get embarrassed and ask me or her other friends if she was leaking through her trousers because even then, as an 18 year old, she was still too shy to leave lecture theatres or seminars to change a pad. And these were lectures and seminars for an English literature course where a solid 90% of the students, and a majority of professors, were other women.
Menstruation is still such a massive social stigma for girls, and it feels like it’s gotten even worse – potentially down to how COVID and keeping young people inside during some of their formative years wasn’t good for their social skills or general interpersonal stuff, potentially down to society in general becoming more creepingly authoritarian, particularly with how it deals with children, whereby simultaneously kids are an uncontrollable menace that need to be punished but also don’t receive any help or support from parents and where teachers are too overworked to do any more than the simple requirements of their jobs.
I had this conversation with a teacher on a open day recently .
What they set in school is not relative to university or work, even the military isn’t as strict as it once was.
The teacher was still trying to fight the corner that being a dick was the right way
There are a few things incorrectly linked together in this article.
First, school is an age where girls pretty much all go through puberty and have to deal with their first periods. That needs to be dealt with a lot better. Considering what an incredibly high proportion of staff in schools are women, I’m amazed how badly managed that is, to be honest. Maybe they’re all too old to remember their own puberty.
Schools have toilet rules because too many kids took the piss and basically used “sir, I need the toilet” as an excuse to skive off lessons they didn’t like. Kids’ bladders aren’t that small, in general you should be able to manage when you go so you can go to the toilet in breaks. This should be managed on a per child basis (i.e. if you do it every lesson it’s suspicious and you should be denied, if it’s occasional then benefit of the doubt), but society has got so much more easily offended and litigious so you’d have mums complaining that their kid wasn’t allowed out when someone else’s was if you did that.
This kid also sounds like she was basically using the toilet to skive off (sorry, ‘regulate’) and that her neurodivergence made the school environment difficult for her to deal with – which would be true even if the school had a sensible toilet policy (because going off to the toilet for half a lesson to ‘regulate’ would be against it anyway).
Another “this is a real problem because it’s a problem for girls” issue.
They shouldn’t be denying toilet access, because it’s a biological function and it’s wrong to do so. It’s not only a problem if you can frame it as affecting girls.
My place has a rule that kids shouldn’t need to go during lessons unless it’s an emergency…they’re 17
In my class we all know the routine
‘Can I go to the toilet’
‘Can you wait 20 minutes or is it an emergency?’
‘It’s an emergency’
‘Off you go—-if the principal asks I put up a fight’
I started my period in primary school so my teacher had told me to use the staff toilet, the first time I went I got shouted at by the headteacher for using it and just went back to class without going.
Some teachers are just on weird power trips
I had a teacher in primary school when I was like 7 said I couldn’t use the toilet. I was busting I really had to go there was no way I could wait. I ended up just going on the seat because she wouldn’t let me. My parents were so angry at the school, after that she never said no again anyways…
I’ve developed Crohns in my twenties, but can only imagine how stressful it would have been to have at school.
Teachers need to understand pupils’ needs. Boys and girls, ill or not.
At my kids school they get three toilet passes a term for use in lesson time. If they want more they have to ask their head of year. Neither of them will drink in the morning or during the school day so they are often dehydrated which can’t help learning.
When I was in school a few years ago we were only allowed to go in breaks, and because of this it meant sometimes you didn’t get the chance to go because of queues.
I understand it’s a safe guarding issue, and I know people personally who went to the toilets just to mess around, so I do feel bad for the teachers as well, who don’t want to risk getting in trouble because of some badly behaved students.
But if you have to go you have to go. My school locked the toilets inbetween lessons, even the disabled one, and this meant kids were throwing up in the hallways every winter when the vomiting bug came round, and people with ibs had to miss like 15 mins of a lesson just to walk to the sixth form building’s toilets which were unlocked. It’s really inhumane and ever since leaving school I’ve been able to go whenever I’ve needed it.
In one of my schools we had open toilets (idk the word) where the cubicles were in the hallway and not in a separate room, and that was probably the best for behaviour. If it’s a one off I think kids should be allowed to go, and I also think adults shouldn’t be shamed for needing it, too. I know a few times my teachers had to call someone from the office to come and watch us for a few mins so they could go. It’s bad for someone’s health to have to hold it and only go once during the school day, I know so many people who had near constant utis because of this, and people who barely drank.
You don’t know why someone’s asking to go. Maybe they got their period, maybe they have diarrhea or feel sick, maybe they just had pe and had to drink, so they need to go.
Kids deserve toilet access when genuinely needed, but teachers also deserve better support, so that they’re able to let kids leave.
Teacher here, although not in the UK. I try and be as fair as I can be with toilet trips- I’ll generally say yes to most students unless it’s in the first or last 10min of class, or I’m giving instructions for a task/answers for said task. I also try and make sure there’s only one boy and one girl out at a time- I’ve had classes in the past where several of them went out at the same time only to then be found talking for ages to friends near the toilets. Then they’d come back in, having missed parts of the lesson and expect you to stop what you’re doing with the students who actually stay in class and explain things to them.
You’ve also got the issue of some students simply straight up using ANY excuse to get out of things they don’t like. I had a boy last year who was smart but lazy and hated writing. He’d typically use either sharpening a pencil or toilet breaks as a reason to skip over entire writing tasks before simply copying answers down from the board. I ended up having to police him specifically (I usually required that he at a minimum started at least 1-2 questions before he did anything else) to keep him on task and actually putting any effort in.
Believe me, I don’t want to police my students and will always let GENUINE emergency toilet trips happen, but some level of policing is an unfortunate necessity when it comes to students.
I’m probably going to sound like a negative Nancy here but let’s go:
For the majority (highlight, majority) of people, toilet rules like this are honestly necessary to keep discipline in your lessons because otherwise I know for a fact 70% of people would abuse going to the toilet and take long breaks just to get out of lesson. In my school there’s also historically been crowding in toilets during lesson times.
It’s the minority that ruin it for the majority, but it kinda makes sense: you are VERY much able to go to the toilet in-between lessons, even in the more stricter schools without being late to lesson, and at breaks, and those with conditions are permitted to go to the toilet whenever.
The rule should definitely be exercised on a more case by case basis, but people calling for it to be scrapped entirely have no idea how a school environment actually is like (as a GCSE pupil myself).
We also have to remember for most exams you aren’t allowed to go to the toilet. With others, there’s a 15 minute window. Just putting that out there…
It is genuinely insane that this is occurring, obscene even, I get some people may abuse the system but this is too far. A lot of schools seem to do this, my school for example also issued “toilet passes” to students who needed the toilet. And I remember when I was in year eight, the entire class collectively had to coerce the teacher to let a student go. The UK experienced the biggest student protest in history over access to school toilets in 2023, so it’s not like this issue has just been exposed. For a girl on her period to be denied bathroom access is just despicable, we need this debated in parliament. This sort of thing belongs in Japanese pornography not British education.
I have a 14 year old daughter at high school in the UK. Her and her friends don’t use the toilets at school. They are too intimidated to use them, and have a very small window of time in which they can.
We’ve tried raising it with the school but they’re not listening, and insist there’s no problem.
Bet this is the next thing Musk is going to latch onto
It did when I went to school in the 80s. You wasnt allowed to go during lessons, and they were locked. And they were also locled for 30 minutes of dinner time because “people smoked in them”, which was BS as we all had an unofficial smokers corner.
Then when went to lessons and needed the toilet, it was still no. I remember a year 7 actually crapping his pants, and girls just walking out of school as they’d leaked through their pads. It was ridiculous. SO many parents complained, but nothing changed, apart from the toilets locked for 15 minutes during dinner.
In my sons old secondary school (sir Robert Pattinson in Lincoln if you’re interested)
The FEMALE deputy head teacher had all the girls in an assembly and told them after year 9 they would not be allowed to go to the toilet during lessons if they were on their period, because.. and I quote – she said ‘by that age you should of learnt to handle it better’
Are you fucking kidding me? I’m 45 and still get caught out (hopefully not for much longer lol)
The only way they could be allowed would be if their parent rung the office, told them the student were on their period and they would be given.. and I kid you not -a PINK CARD- to give the teacher. Obvs they would have to do this infront of all their classmates.
Now my child is male and I told even him, you need the bathroom you don’t ask, you tell the teacher you are going to the bathroom.
It’s fucking archaic. Don’t get me started on that they are trying to bring in ‘silent corridors’ 🙄
I’m so glad I’m out of this system this June. And I feel sorry for parents and students alike
Should be straight up illegal to deny someone access to the toilet like that. I mean employers wouldn’t get away with it in the workplace.
Yes I’m aware some students abuse this to get off lessons, but it’s usually the same culprits and they should be targeted directly not let all students suffer for it.
I think schools just overreach in general these days, for example I’ve seen first hand how my old high school sends members of staff up town at home time, to stop students going into takeaways on the way home. I find it hilarious that the school thinks they should have any power over the kids once the bell rings at the end of day.
Is it really that bad today where teachers don’t let kids go to the toilet during lessons? I left in 2011 and teachers let us go all the time. You were given 10 minutes and then a member of staff came to find you so you couldn’t skive off.
It took me a long time to get over the shit school imposed. I felt like nobody was “allowed” to do very much at all without explicit permission, it was something that lingered subconciously, slowing down my decision making, until I blasted it away with mushrooms. School sucks.
It’s awful that things haven’t improved since I was in high school in the 80s/early 90s. You had to ask to go to the toilet then too and most of the teachers would ask you why. I remember one girl in my class being so scared to ask that she sat there and bled through her skirt, and of course endured months of pisstaking, poor kid.
I had to go to the nurse a few times because of absolutely crippling period pain and again, a lot of the teachers asked why you needed to leave the lesson, as if being white as a sheet and unable to walk upright weren’t hints something might be up.
I’d really have expected things would’ve progressed a bit by now.
The bladder and bowel community wrote an article about this exact issue if anyone would like to read 😊 https://www.bladderandbowel.org/news/toilets-in-schools/
As sad as this is, the toilets at the school I work in stay closed too. We trialled keeping them open / taking the doors off again and 3 boys covered the camera and knocked a hole in the wall for absolutely nothing within days. We also had a girl start a fire in the sinks in the autumn term.
We are a small school in a semi rural area so people probably wouldn’t expect this kind of behaviour but unfortunately, it’s rife. Internal truancy is probably the biggest issue we face at the moment and the two incidents I’ve just mentioned are the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps anyone who doesn’t agree with it is welcome to come and clean and repair everything every day if they want to because the kids certainly won’t and the school just can’t afford it.
Teachers are twats on power trip I tell you, its like the professions with the vulnerable attract the biggest assholes
Why won’t you let my daughter leave class whenever she wants for as long as she wants?
<3 year delay>
What do you mean my daughter failed every subject because she just sits in the toilets all day and you didn’t make her stay in class?
Well it’s a tough one. Sure you could just let kids go freely, but kids love to take advantage, roam the halls, smash up toilets, generally do bad things when there’s fewer people around to see. Sure, you could mark bad kids and good kids and let the good kids go freely but that’s discrimination. Maybe have dedicated staff to escort kids there? But that costs money. Idk
I’m a teacher, when a students asks me if they can use the toilet i always say yes. Its not a problem, i dont know why it is for some teachers. If two students ask to go, i let one go first then the second one afterwards.
If a girl asks if she can take her bag with her, i dont even question it, they can go.
Been doing this for a good while now, no problems as yet.
The levels of barbarity that is given to children in this country is at times ridiculous.
Honestly restricting when a person can use the toilet. How asinine can they get.
The situation boils down to white middle-class teachers sh*tting on the working-class youth.
After both my girls were not allowed to use the toilets I refused to send my kids to school whilst on their period citing that the schools do not allow them to use the toilet, I made it very clear that if I sent them in and they were not allowed to go when required I would be turning up to speak with the principal, vice principal, and head of year.
Funnily enough it’s not been a problem since.
Lots of comments on here bashing teachers so let me provide the teacher POV: many students ask to go to the toilet when what they actually want to do is to meet up with their mates to roam around the school without oversight and vandalise or steal. Some will ask to go so that they can do drugs. Some will go because they know another student is genuinely going and they want to assault them and/or film them in order to humiliate them. Schools are hugely understaffed with many teachers doing the work of what used to be covered by three people; there just isn’t enough manpower to patrol the school and corridors well enough to prevent these things from happening when the vast majority of your staff are stuck inside a classroom teaching. Allowing it to happen is a worse potential safeguarding problem than some students potentially wetting themselves or bleeding through their clothes which is how we’ve ended up with this situation. If schools were funded properly and were able to hire people to patrol the corridors rules could be relaxed and this wouldn’t be an issue.
My daughter has the same experience.
I’m a manager at work, senior in my department, 15 people reporting to me. If I tried to pull half the shit schools do on kids, *I would be fired*.
It’s also worryingly easy to make “principals” back down once they realise you professionally outrank them. They rely on that intimidatory factor far too much, the “we do it because fuck you, there’s nothing to stop us”, a complete lack of respect for students and parents.
These rules *never* apply to staff. That’d be illegal. But we’re fine abusing kids, because reasons. I can personally attest that principals love that being pointed out.
Shit I can imagine. When I was a teenager my periods were brutal affairs and to top it off, I also had stress incontinence. Every time I coughed, sneezed or laughed too hard, I’d wee myself.
The stress incontinence went away once I got a bit older, maybe around 17-18. I have no idea why I had it, but suffice to say a period pad (even the heavy duty night time pads which were the ones I always used) was not adequate. Maybe it’s something a lot of girls going through puberty experience, I never really asked.
Absolutely nobody should be prevented from going to the toilet whenever they need to, but teenage girls in particular? Sheesh.
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