Were toilet breaks during lessons allowed at your school?

[yorkie]

I am surprised this is 'news'...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-39351614

Children at a secondary school in Hull have been banned from going to the toilet during lessons.

The policy at Archbishop Sentamu Academy has been designed to stop students from avoiding learning during class hours, the school said.

But angry parents are outraged at the move, with some saying it could damage their children's health.

The school said pupils can use the toilet if they have written permission or a doctor's note.

I thought this was standard policy at most schools that pupils go at break, lunch or between lessons, rather than during lessons?

And anyone with a particular issue just brings in a note to get a toilet pass (which John Manolasses could do for his daughter)?

Isn't this school just doing what most schools do?

 

[Railops]

Toilets were locked when I was at school except lunchtime.

 

[A Challenge]

I know that some teachers are more strict on 'no toilets in lessons' than others, so this might be standardising it. Though why this is news...

EDIT: I am surprised by that though Railops!

 

[AlterEgo]

We were allowed toilet breaks but it was exceptional for someone to ask to go. It just wasn't the done thing.

 

[Railops]

EDIT: I am surprised by that though Railops!

If anyone was desperate they had to go to the office and get a key, the secretary had to lock them up again.

 

[Merseysider]

Calday Grammar, Y7-11: Not unless it was clear we were gonna burst, which was reasonable, as interruptions are obviously disruptive. If we could hold it in, we were told to go at the end of the lesson. Would then get told off for being late to next lesson, lol.

Y12-13: rarely happened, as we'd grown up a bit but still had to raise our hand to ask permission. A formality, as it was normally given. We did have this one teacher though who'd deliberately ignore anyone with their hand up for several minutes. He wasn't very popular, although it did result in fewer people needing to 'go' during his lesson

 

[krus_aragon]

Having worked in a number of schools in North Wales recently, the rule in most (if not all) is that pupils should not go to the toilet during lessons. Those with a medical need to go at short notice are provided with a medical card that they can show to a member of staff to 'self-authorise' themselves to leave the classroom.

Does this stop other pupils from asking to go during lessons? Of course not. And naturally some teachers/headteachers will be stricter or more lenient about it. One common response at the moment is to argue that if one isn't allowed to go to the toilet when they need to or they'll get a bladder infection! Oh, and peddling the line that it is their human right to got to the toilet immediately when they want to. (Lets see how well that works if they get a job as an engine driver or similar!) Some more insistent individuals will keep asking repeatedly until they get the answer they want, or until the lesson is over.

 

[J-2739]

Depends on the teacher really, and what time it is.

I rarely go to the toilets during lesson time though.

 

[najaB]

Yes, though you had to ask for permission so tended not to.

 

[richw]

My daughter has medical exemption. Even at primary school we had to jump through hoops and have a SENCO plan drawn up.

 

[AndrewR232]

We were allowed toilet breaks but it was exceptional for someone to ask to go. It just wasn't the done thing.

Pretty much the same at my school.

 

[najaB]

Toilets were locked when I was at school except lunchtime.

I had a thought about this - I don't think the toilets were locked at all during the day in any of the schools I went to (I went to a few!).

 

[richw]

Is access to a toilet one of the human rights set in law in Europe?

 

[Domh245]

The only times that the toilets were locked at my school was when there had been vandalism significant enough for the toilets to be closed for repairs - although there was a spate of repeated vandalism that resulted in the closing of a number of toilets as a result

 

[Tetchytyke]

We were allowed out if we needed it, yes, and that was in the mid-90s.

I hope every girl in that school just says she's on her period...every single day. Idiot headmaster wanting to prove he's Billy Big Bollocks. Bloke, naturally.

 

[GatwickDepress]

We were allowed toilet breaks during lessons. I've never been in a school where it hasn't been allowed. Obviously if you took liberties with them, you would be punished for them.

We didn't have hall passes either; it was a system built on honesty and it worked. Having pastoral managers roam the corridors during lessons to weed out truants probably helped too...

 

[Busaholic]

We were allowed toilet breaks during lessons. I've never been in a school where it hasn't been allowed. Obviously if you took liberties with them, you would be punished for them.

We didn't have hall passes either; it was a system built on honesty and it worked. Having pastoral managers roam the corridors during lessons to weed out truants probably helped too...

What a load of softies. We may theoretically have had toilets in the schools I attended but they were so rank that nobody ever used them. For much the same reasons (plus one or two others) I never had a shower at school after cross country, rugby or cricket.

 

[Trainfan344]

Always had toilet breaks in my lessons, obviously with a timetable of Registration-Assembly-Lesson 1-Lesson 2- Break - Lesson 3 - Lunch - Registration - Lesson 4 - Lesson 5 the teachers were stricter about going to the loo just before or after a break but rest of the time seemed okay.

 

[me123]

It was actively discouraged, but you could go to the toilet if you needed to. We had a few weeks after a vandalism incident where it was almost prohibited (they kept a record of people going during class time and you were strongly discouraged from using the facilities) but otherwise they just trusted us not to take the p***, if you'll pardon the pun. On the whole, it worked and it wasn't really an issue. That said, it was a small school so people who were deliberately skiving off would have been quickly identified.

Quite how this is worthy of national news I have no idea.

 

[Bayum]

I don't let my kids go before breaktime (10:15) or after lunch up to 13:45. Throughout secondary, no-one was allowed to go to the toilet unless they had a medical note.

 

[alxndr]

It was always down to the teacher's discretion at any school I've been to. They generally seemed to take into account how long it had been since the last opportunity to go outside of a lesson, how much of the lesson was left, how far it was to the toilet (especially as there was only one male toilet in the main body of the school), and how urgently you reckoned you needed to go.

If there was already someone out of the class then you could pretty much guarantee the answer would be "no", especially if they were a mate. People who persistently asked to go in a particular lesson would soon get picked up on too.

 

[yorkie]

I know a teacher who said "you can go if you make the time up at the end of the lesson", which drastically reduced the number of requests.

However that only really worked for 3 out of 5 lessons in the day, which preceded break, lunch & after school.

 

[CarlSilva]

We were allowed out if we needed it, yes, and that was in the mid-90s.

I hope every girl in that school just says she's on her period...every single day. Idiot headmaster wanting to prove he's Billy Big Bollocks. Bloke, naturally.

Totally agree.
If you need to go, you just do, and eventulaly nature takes it's course. At least it did at our shcool. The kid will remain nameless in case hes' on here. When teh teacher said no you cant go, he ****ed in his bag, Glad I wasnt sat next to him.

 

[muz379]

Depended on Teacher . Some teachers just had a rule that you could just go anytime you wanted without asking , my IT teacher in upper school was like this but then most of the work we did was self directed coursework under his supervision . This was the policy when I was at college as well .

Other teachers you had to ask and generally unless you had a reputation as the class clown or constantly asking they would let you , kids who constantly used to ask or vanish for ages got reported to heads of year or deputy heads , and some teachers just flat out wouldn't let you especially if it was straight after break or lunch .

 

[WelshBluebird]

It was actively discouraged, but you could go to the toilet if you needed to

Pretty much this.

I really do feel sorry for kids in classes where they are totally banned from going. Even as an adult, quite often if you have to go then you simply have to go. Seems pretty wrong to me to stop someone from going to the loo if they really need to go.

 

[bradford758]

Back in the day (1970), no problem- kids went for a "break" ostensibly a toilet break, but they actually went for a sly smoke!
Roll forward to 2015 and I was taking exams, kids could go but had to be escorted, this was altered so only ones could go if they had a pass. If I wanted to go I had to get a key as there were no male staff toilets, I'm sure that's against some law??

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[deltic1989]

It depended on the teacher at my secondary school.
Most teachers had the rule that no one was to leave the class unless the school was on fire, which caused a few interesting interactions, mostly with the girls "But I'm on sir". Their reasoning, weather sound or not, was that in the world of work you wouldn't be able to just get up and go.
I did hear an unconfirmed report that a boy in the year above me (I was in year 8 or 9 at the time), after being declined permission to go to the loo, walked up to the front of the class dropped his keks and crapped in the bin. I have no idea how true this is, but the teacher concerned seemed to be more free with toilet privilages than before.

 

[Tetchytyke]

in the world of work you wouldn't be able to just get up and go.

That's nearly always used as a justification, but it simply isn't true. I don't think I've ever had a job where I've not been allowed to go and have a wee if I needed one, I was and am trusted to be professional and judge it for myself. Now if I was spending 20 minutes there every hour it'd be different, but that's an entirely different matter. If certain kids are taking the pee about toilet breaks then that's a disciplinary matter for those individual children, who probably won't care about the ban anyway.

These stupid blanket bans normally come about from new headteachers who want to show how big and strong and tough they are. It's really quite pathetic. If you have to throw your weight around to show you have authority then, in reality, you have no authority.

 

[najaB]

Their reasoning, weather sound or not, was that in the world of work you wouldn't be able to just get up and go.

That depends entirely on the job you are doing. Middle of a heart transplant operation? Probably not. In the middle of replying to an email? Probably not a problem.

 

[rg177]

I'm now in Year 13.

In Years 7-11, it was allowed but frowned upon. Now, you're allowed provided that you ask. No teacher challenges you, and if you're set off on some other task, it's not out of course to nip out for a minute to go to the loo.

However, year 7-11 are now completely banned and they do lock every toilet bar a single disabled toilet in one of the blocks. This is meant to be during lessons only but in reality, staff can't be bothered unlocking them and they frequently stay locked, meaning that it's a right faff wandering around to try and find one that's still open.

The whole school going in a downward spiral to be honest, with study rooms being used by staff to do whatever they like, but that's not to be my concern as I leave in June.

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