>Sam Strickland, principal of Duston school, an academy in Northampton that teaches children aged four to 19, told the Observer: “Some parents have been arguing that it is an infringement of human rights for schools to restrict toilet use during lessons. That’s ludicrous.”
It doesn’t seem that ludicrous to me. Allowing people to wet themselves seems like it wouldn’t be tolerated in any place of work and I’m pretty sure care homes would be investigated if they were seen to allow it to happen.
To me this is adding to the long list of things schools are doing to enforce discipline and control. From strict uniform rules, to lateness penalties, to equipment checks to homework detentions. On the one hand schools talk about the importance of children’s mental health whilst piling on pressure around targets, SATS, GCSE’s etc as well as all the other things I’ve listed. To me the emphasis is in the wrong place, it’s almost Victorian in direction and doesn’t in any way make allowances for individuals and certainly doesn’t encourage a healthy working environment.
I imagine if I was a teacher and knew what it was really like in a school I’d look more favourably on these rules.
Kids are bellends.
As a student in high school right now, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to protest to be able to go to the toilet during class. They’ll miss 5 minutes of a lesson, so what? If you need to go you need to go, it’s not a huge deal. And what about people who have periods? Nobody wants to go up to their teacher during class and say “I’m having my period” in front of the teacher or the class. School is such a shitty place for so many people, so I don’t see the harm in protesting for something you feel is right, given that it’s only really asking to go to the bathroom during a lesson.
You really need to consider the bigger picture here in regards to unmonitored toilet access. I have had the following in 2 schools over the last 6 years, all happen in the toilets at lesson time, not break when we have staff outside them on duty. This is secondary.
1. 2 suicide attempts. None of these students had previously done so or had shown any risk, so therefore didn’t have a risk assessment or TA. We do (sadly) have multiple students at risk of an attempt and they are closely monitored.
2. Multiple instances of assault. Students will arrange to meet up in toilets and fight as there are no cameras and therefore little evidence for the police to use if a weapon is involved or serious injury occurs. We do find knives in toilets.
3. Smoking, vaping a drug taking. Smoking is now rare, but we can pull more than 100 vapes from kids A WEEK. They use the toilets to do this. Most of the time we also get a huge amount of shit from parents as we confiscate them. We probably find weed a few times a year in there too.
4. Damage. Have you seen sinks ripped off the wall? Pipework destroyed? A student running down a corridor with a toilet seat around his neck? Granted the toilet seat around the neck was a one off, but nearly every toilet block in every school I’ve worked at (5 in nearly 16 years) have been damaged and cost us thousands to repair. That money would now mean the loss of a TA as we are so cash-strapped. Every time.
5. Lost learning. Students are allowed to use the toilet if they show genuine need, but we make a note and very quickly you see that a large group of the shit kids are the ones desperate for a pee every single lesson, or are bleeding through every single lesson. These kids don’t have medical passes, but meet their mates, run around the building and generally be dicks, disrupting other classes and missing their own.
Even one of those means that we can’t allow unmonitored access, it is a safeguarding nightmare. Many adults who comment on this think about when they were at school and how it wouldn’t be that bad.
It is that bad.
Protesting is good. It should happen more.
What isn’t good, is the way it’s often done.
Why do so many people on this sub fucking love keeping the status quo and dive head first into the “back in my day we got the belt and we were happy about it” mentality. I am sorry but change is for a reason? Why should a child be questioned as to why they bring their bag to the toilet or told to “hold it”. Never in my working life have I had to ask permission to have a piss.
God forbid children aren’t letting themselves be moulded into obedient worker drones bowing to authority. The ends don’t justify the means: there being trouble in the bathrooms doesn’t make the schools’ response acceptable. Any injury that comes to any kids is the schools’ fault for doubling down on a ludicrous policy that would be illegal anywhere else in British society.
The secondary school I went to was a new build and had open-plan toilets, which were basically an opening off the main corridor. They had 3 cubicles on each side and a round communal sink in the middle. It was supposed to be an anti-bullying measure, but it also discouraged people from hanging out in the toilets, as unless they shut themselves into a small cubicle, they’d be visible to anyone walking past.
I remember being a small child around 8 years old when my teacher refused to let me go to the toilet during lesson and I promptly pee’d myself. From that moment onwards when I needed a pee I just went for one regardless of what the teacher says.
I’m surprised to see so much unity among the students, it’s admirable. Back in my day, everyone was so cliquey that it would be impossible to organise anything like this.
I teach college level 16+ and some of the things my students say about their secondary education is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, for various different reasons, schools have lost control in the classroom.
Not letting students go to the toilet or only giving them 30 minutes for lunch isn’t going to help.
If you think more than 10% of these kids actually care, you’re deluded.
It’s a bit of fun and a trend. Uniform consultations happen frequently at good schools. Bathroom use is usually teacher discretion.
Newspapers can just add the word “TikTok” to anything teenagers do to make it seem childish, trivial, and create the impression they’re all jumping on a bandwagon.
In reality, school can be tough enough without worrying about not be able to access basic facilities to carry out your natural bodily functions.
If the schools have a problem with bullying, they need to tackle it, not lock the toilets. They also need to listen to the concerns of their students and their parents, and not just dismiss them out of hand with a “we know best” attitude.
I totally understand many teacher’s concerns with students saying they need the toilet just to get out of lesson time (or worse), however banning toilet use isn’t the solution here. In virtually any other context it would not be allowed for somebody in charge to tell you that you can’t use the toilet when you need it.
If there is concern that kids are getting up to things they shouldn’t whilst saying they need the toilet, make a note of who these students are who consistently need the toilet and consider setting up a meeting with parents to discuss if there are any health issues causing that, which would deter most kids without an actual need to keep saying they need the toilet.
Likewise, make only one of the pairs of bathrooms available outside of lunch/break and have a member of staff in the corridor outside or inside the toilet to check that nobody is messing about.
I know there are teachers that will let students go if they evidently really need to, but there are plenty that don’t. When I was a teenager, students wetting themselves in classes was, unfortunately, not a one off incident. Most teachers outright *refused* to let you go, no matter how desperate you were.
Students deserve the right to go to the toilet when they need it, it’s up to schools to work out a solution that works for both them and their students. The solution is not to ban regular bodily functions from happening.
“Don’t actually listen to your children about issues! Ignore them and trust your school!” Absolute fucking melts saying it’s because of TikTok and not the bizarre actions of schools
I’m 19, so I only left school fairly recently. My school tried locking the toilets for a while. It was ridiculous. “You should have went at break time”. Peeing at break time doesn’t always stop you from needing to go during class time. My school would sometimes forget to unlock the bathroom doors at the start of break time anyways. Also, people who are responsible for education should be fully aware that periods are uncontrollable. Nobody should be punished for having an irregular period, heavy period or simply not knowing how to handle it yet because they are literally going through puberty.
Girl in my scholl pissed herself in class once. No one ever let her live it down. Actually traumatically mortifying for her to this day I bet. Could have been avoided if the teacher had just let her go to the toilet for 30 seconds.
Honestly, I’m 100% with the kids on this one.
I thought that the vast majority of school rules were ridiculous when I was 16, and I still think the same as an adult.
Our school system has a terrible problem with inventing rules for the sake of having rules, and then enforcing them with harsh punishments, no matter how stupid the rule is. When I was a kid, it was all about having six stripes on your tie and wearing the right shoes. Now, it’s about using the bathroom at the right time and for the right amount of time.
What does this teach our children, other than that questioning authority is bad and that you should always follow the rules no matter how much you disagree with them?
My son’s high school recently had an organised protest at the draconian measures implemented by the school.
Knee length skirts for girls, girls being separated at the door and measured. If they didn’t meet length rules they were handed disciplinary measures like detentions/ suspensions. Toilets being locked through the day and monitored between classes.
My son came home and we talked about it and how he felt watching the girls being humiliated that way. He was angry and confused. We talked and he decided he wanted to take a stand. His only rules from me was don’t be disrespectful.
He was suspended for wearing a skirt on day two and refusing to move to class.
I’m incredibly proud of him and his generation for questioning the legitimacy of arbitrary rules designed to beat compliance into us.
I have a medical condition that means I often have to go to the bathroom without prior warnings at random times, and since my HS has closed all but one of the bathrooms due to students vaping, and even the remaining one requires a key from the head office, which takes 10+ minutes to get.
I am worried that if things keep going the way they are, there are going to be serious problems for some students.
What pisses me off in these situations are people who have zero experience in school apart from their own school life over a decade ago. They don’t realise the immense work that goes on to make compromises that balance behaviour and safeguarding around school sites.
I taught for 3 months this year and it was a major issue. Leaving lessons to take drugs and have sex in the toilet (now mixed). Parents ringing up and screaming at me as their delightful children had left and gone to Tesco. When I asked them not to go to the toilet in groups I got told to fuck myself. So many parents in denial about behaviour. Got myself a gig cleaning and never been happier.
Those of you who think today’s students are going to be on your side in the future are in for a rude awakening.
Behaviour in schools across Britain is abhorrent. Anybody who has worked in education recently can tell you that. This is not a generation of Corbynites or anti-tory activists waiting to happen.
You’re being played.
A couple of years back I did supply teaching for a while between jobs. I went in with the attitude, “of course I’m going to let them go to the toilet if they ask, it’s silly not to.” The minute the kids realised I was saying yes to everyone, they all started needing the toilet. One would leave the room, someone else would immediately ask to go. I’d tell them to wait for the first person to get back, and the first person frequently took an unreasonable amount of time. One time I had a group of about three girls all “need the toilet” at once, and when I told them to go into the corridor and tell me what was actually going on, turns out there was some drama over a boy they didn’t want to discuss in class.
I basically very quickly realised if you try to treat school kids like adults when it comes to going to the toilet when they need to, you’ll get an awful lot of them who act not like adults but like the children they are and take advantage of it. I still didn’t really know what to do so I kept saying yes if someone was really insistent about it, but I kept getting anxious about if I’d be the one in trouble if the kids got caught using the break to just wander the corridors or something worse. And *I* as the adult in that situation couldn’t just leave the classroom to use the toilet. I was expected to plan ahead and go at break times. I think a lot of the people here turning this into a human rights issue have no clue what it’s like to manage a classroom of 30+ kids where at least five of them will want to exploit lenience for toilet breaks as soon as they realise they can. I don’t think simply locking the toilets during class times is the answer, but I’m sure the regular teachers had a better method I just never had the training for.
25 comments
>Sam Strickland, principal of Duston school, an academy in Northampton that teaches children aged four to 19, told the Observer: “Some parents have been arguing that it is an infringement of human rights for schools to restrict toilet use during lessons. That’s ludicrous.”
It doesn’t seem that ludicrous to me. Allowing people to wet themselves seems like it wouldn’t be tolerated in any place of work and I’m pretty sure care homes would be investigated if they were seen to allow it to happen.
To me this is adding to the long list of things schools are doing to enforce discipline and control. From strict uniform rules, to lateness penalties, to equipment checks to homework detentions. On the one hand schools talk about the importance of children’s mental health whilst piling on pressure around targets, SATS, GCSE’s etc as well as all the other things I’ve listed. To me the emphasis is in the wrong place, it’s almost Victorian in direction and doesn’t in any way make allowances for individuals and certainly doesn’t encourage a healthy working environment.
I imagine if I was a teacher and knew what it was really like in a school I’d look more favourably on these rules.
Kids are bellends.
As a student in high school right now, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to protest to be able to go to the toilet during class. They’ll miss 5 minutes of a lesson, so what? If you need to go you need to go, it’s not a huge deal. And what about people who have periods? Nobody wants to go up to their teacher during class and say “I’m having my period” in front of the teacher or the class. School is such a shitty place for so many people, so I don’t see the harm in protesting for something you feel is right, given that it’s only really asking to go to the bathroom during a lesson.
You really need to consider the bigger picture here in regards to unmonitored toilet access. I have had the following in 2 schools over the last 6 years, all happen in the toilets at lesson time, not break when we have staff outside them on duty. This is secondary.
1. 2 suicide attempts. None of these students had previously done so or had shown any risk, so therefore didn’t have a risk assessment or TA. We do (sadly) have multiple students at risk of an attempt and they are closely monitored.
2. Multiple instances of assault. Students will arrange to meet up in toilets and fight as there are no cameras and therefore little evidence for the police to use if a weapon is involved or serious injury occurs. We do find knives in toilets.
3. Smoking, vaping a drug taking. Smoking is now rare, but we can pull more than 100 vapes from kids A WEEK. They use the toilets to do this. Most of the time we also get a huge amount of shit from parents as we confiscate them. We probably find weed a few times a year in there too.
4. Damage. Have you seen sinks ripped off the wall? Pipework destroyed? A student running down a corridor with a toilet seat around his neck? Granted the toilet seat around the neck was a one off, but nearly every toilet block in every school I’ve worked at (5 in nearly 16 years) have been damaged and cost us thousands to repair. That money would now mean the loss of a TA as we are so cash-strapped. Every time.
5. Lost learning. Students are allowed to use the toilet if they show genuine need, but we make a note and very quickly you see that a large group of the shit kids are the ones desperate for a pee every single lesson, or are bleeding through every single lesson. These kids don’t have medical passes, but meet their mates, run around the building and generally be dicks, disrupting other classes and missing their own.
Even one of those means that we can’t allow unmonitored access, it is a safeguarding nightmare. Many adults who comment on this think about when they were at school and how it wouldn’t be that bad.
It is that bad.
Protesting is good. It should happen more.
What isn’t good, is the way it’s often done.
Why do so many people on this sub fucking love keeping the status quo and dive head first into the “back in my day we got the belt and we were happy about it” mentality. I am sorry but change is for a reason? Why should a child be questioned as to why they bring their bag to the toilet or told to “hold it”. Never in my working life have I had to ask permission to have a piss.
God forbid children aren’t letting themselves be moulded into obedient worker drones bowing to authority. The ends don’t justify the means: there being trouble in the bathrooms doesn’t make the schools’ response acceptable. Any injury that comes to any kids is the schools’ fault for doubling down on a ludicrous policy that would be illegal anywhere else in British society.
The secondary school I went to was a new build and had open-plan toilets, which were basically an opening off the main corridor. They had 3 cubicles on each side and a round communal sink in the middle. It was supposed to be an anti-bullying measure, but it also discouraged people from hanging out in the toilets, as unless they shut themselves into a small cubicle, they’d be visible to anyone walking past.
I remember being a small child around 8 years old when my teacher refused to let me go to the toilet during lesson and I promptly pee’d myself. From that moment onwards when I needed a pee I just went for one regardless of what the teacher says.
I’m surprised to see so much unity among the students, it’s admirable. Back in my day, everyone was so cliquey that it would be impossible to organise anything like this.
I teach college level 16+ and some of the things my students say about their secondary education is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, for various different reasons, schools have lost control in the classroom.
Not letting students go to the toilet or only giving them 30 minutes for lunch isn’t going to help.
If you think more than 10% of these kids actually care, you’re deluded.
It’s a bit of fun and a trend. Uniform consultations happen frequently at good schools. Bathroom use is usually teacher discretion.
Newspapers can just add the word “TikTok” to anything teenagers do to make it seem childish, trivial, and create the impression they’re all jumping on a bandwagon.
In reality, school can be tough enough without worrying about not be able to access basic facilities to carry out your natural bodily functions.
If the schools have a problem with bullying, they need to tackle it, not lock the toilets. They also need to listen to the concerns of their students and their parents, and not just dismiss them out of hand with a “we know best” attitude.
I totally understand many teacher’s concerns with students saying they need the toilet just to get out of lesson time (or worse), however banning toilet use isn’t the solution here. In virtually any other context it would not be allowed for somebody in charge to tell you that you can’t use the toilet when you need it.
If there is concern that kids are getting up to things they shouldn’t whilst saying they need the toilet, make a note of who these students are who consistently need the toilet and consider setting up a meeting with parents to discuss if there are any health issues causing that, which would deter most kids without an actual need to keep saying they need the toilet.
Likewise, make only one of the pairs of bathrooms available outside of lunch/break and have a member of staff in the corridor outside or inside the toilet to check that nobody is messing about.
I know there are teachers that will let students go if they evidently really need to, but there are plenty that don’t. When I was a teenager, students wetting themselves in classes was, unfortunately, not a one off incident. Most teachers outright *refused* to let you go, no matter how desperate you were.
Students deserve the right to go to the toilet when they need it, it’s up to schools to work out a solution that works for both them and their students. The solution is not to ban regular bodily functions from happening.
“Don’t actually listen to your children about issues! Ignore them and trust your school!” Absolute fucking melts saying it’s because of TikTok and not the bizarre actions of schools
I’m 19, so I only left school fairly recently. My school tried locking the toilets for a while. It was ridiculous. “You should have went at break time”. Peeing at break time doesn’t always stop you from needing to go during class time. My school would sometimes forget to unlock the bathroom doors at the start of break time anyways. Also, people who are responsible for education should be fully aware that periods are uncontrollable. Nobody should be punished for having an irregular period, heavy period or simply not knowing how to handle it yet because they are literally going through puberty.
Girl in my scholl pissed herself in class once. No one ever let her live it down. Actually traumatically mortifying for her to this day I bet. Could have been avoided if the teacher had just let her go to the toilet for 30 seconds.
Honestly, I’m 100% with the kids on this one.
I thought that the vast majority of school rules were ridiculous when I was 16, and I still think the same as an adult.
Our school system has a terrible problem with inventing rules for the sake of having rules, and then enforcing them with harsh punishments, no matter how stupid the rule is. When I was a kid, it was all about having six stripes on your tie and wearing the right shoes. Now, it’s about using the bathroom at the right time and for the right amount of time.
What does this teach our children, other than that questioning authority is bad and that you should always follow the rules no matter how much you disagree with them?
My son’s high school recently had an organised protest at the draconian measures implemented by the school.
Knee length skirts for girls, girls being separated at the door and measured. If they didn’t meet length rules they were handed disciplinary measures like detentions/ suspensions. Toilets being locked through the day and monitored between classes.
My son came home and we talked about it and how he felt watching the girls being humiliated that way. He was angry and confused. We talked and he decided he wanted to take a stand. His only rules from me was don’t be disrespectful.
He was suspended for wearing a skirt on day two and refusing to move to class.
I’m incredibly proud of him and his generation for questioning the legitimacy of arbitrary rules designed to beat compliance into us.
I have a medical condition that means I often have to go to the bathroom without prior warnings at random times, and since my HS has closed all but one of the bathrooms due to students vaping, and even the remaining one requires a key from the head office, which takes 10+ minutes to get.
I am worried that if things keep going the way they are, there are going to be serious problems for some students.
What pisses me off in these situations are people who have zero experience in school apart from their own school life over a decade ago. They don’t realise the immense work that goes on to make compromises that balance behaviour and safeguarding around school sites.
I taught for 3 months this year and it was a major issue. Leaving lessons to take drugs and have sex in the toilet (now mixed). Parents ringing up and screaming at me as their delightful children had left and gone to Tesco. When I asked them not to go to the toilet in groups I got told to fuck myself. So many parents in denial about behaviour. Got myself a gig cleaning and never been happier.
Those of you who think today’s students are going to be on your side in the future are in for a rude awakening.
Behaviour in schools across Britain is abhorrent. Anybody who has worked in education recently can tell you that. This is not a generation of Corbynites or anti-tory activists waiting to happen.
You’re being played.
A couple of years back I did supply teaching for a while between jobs. I went in with the attitude, “of course I’m going to let them go to the toilet if they ask, it’s silly not to.” The minute the kids realised I was saying yes to everyone, they all started needing the toilet. One would leave the room, someone else would immediately ask to go. I’d tell them to wait for the first person to get back, and the first person frequently took an unreasonable amount of time. One time I had a group of about three girls all “need the toilet” at once, and when I told them to go into the corridor and tell me what was actually going on, turns out there was some drama over a boy they didn’t want to discuss in class.
I basically very quickly realised if you try to treat school kids like adults when it comes to going to the toilet when they need to, you’ll get an awful lot of them who act not like adults but like the children they are and take advantage of it. I still didn’t really know what to do so I kept saying yes if someone was really insistent about it, but I kept getting anxious about if I’d be the one in trouble if the kids got caught using the break to just wander the corridors or something worse. And *I* as the adult in that situation couldn’t just leave the classroom to use the toilet. I was expected to plan ahead and go at break times. I think a lot of the people here turning this into a human rights issue have no clue what it’s like to manage a classroom of 30+ kids where at least five of them will want to exploit lenience for toilet breaks as soon as they realise they can. I don’t think simply locking the toilets during class times is the answer, but I’m sure the regular teachers had a better method I just never had the training for.