ERIC eNews

Back to school

As children go back to school after the summer, many parents become concerned about school toilets. It’s distressing when your child comes home cross-legged and in agony or in tears from an accident at school. Good toilets are important for all children but even more so for a child with bladder or bowel problems, or a child with special needs or disabilities.

What can you do?

What can you do when the toilets are not up to scratch or when access isn’t as immediate as it should be? Schools may not be aware of the problems from the perspective of the child, or of the short and long-term health effects of poor toilets and inadequate access.

A friendly approach, working together and offering solutions will be more effective than criticism and conflict. Here are some suggestions offered by ERIC’s Bog Standard campaign for better toilets for pupils:

Talk to your children

• Talk to your children about the state of the toilets at their school. Can they go when they need to? (Do they rush to the toilet as soon as they get home?)
• What do your children think should be done about the toilets? Do they have any suggestions or ideas?

Visit the toilets

• Make a point of regularly looking at the pupils’ toilets when you’re in school or picking your child up. Would you be happy to use them? It’s a good idea to ask permission from a teacher and have them escort you into the toilets – this also helps to show that you think the toilets matter.
• Remember that schools are most sensitive to comments when you’re a prospective parent, so always ask to view the pupils’ toilets when you make a visit and also ask about access. For the true flavour try and visit during a normal school day. Don’t forget to comment on what you find.

Talk to the school

If your child has any problems:
• Ask your child’s doctor or nurse to write a letter to the school requesting open access to the toilets for your child.
• If the toilets are locked (which they shouldn’t be), request that your child can keep a copy of the key(s). Arrangements where they have to go to an office first to collect a key are not helpful.
• Contact the school nurse to ask if s/he can liaise with the school (the school office can give you contact details). The school nurse can request the child be allowed to leave class to visit the toilet at intervals to suit their needs and not at the demand of school routine or class requirements. Staff can be asked to be mindful of not causing embarrassment and to consider where your child sits in class in relation to the door and when regrouping pupils for different activities.
• The school nurse can tell the school that in order to develop bladder capacity and to help avoid constipation and soiling problems, it is especially important a child with continence problems, or certain health conditions, drinks water regularly throughout the school day.
• Encourage health professionals to ask schools to consider the needs of all pupils in any letters they write to schools requesting open access to toilets for an individual pupil. This also helps to prevent future bladder and bowel problem and avoids individual children feeling singled out.

Work with the school
• Suggest the PTA fundraises to improve the toilets. Kings’ Comprehensive School in Winchester ran a year-long Toilet Challenge and Toilets in Need appeal. The whole school raised money to help enable the toilets to be demolished, redesigned and built to the pupils’ specifications. They did this through a series of events including a table top sale.
• Suggest forming a working party with pupils to paint the toilets, install colourful toilet seats, create a mural – these inexpensive and short-term changes can help make the toilets more pleasant and raise morale – and encourage pupils to look after toilets.
• Tap into the skills and contacts of parents and governors to make greater improvements.
• If your school has a school council, encourage your child to ask his or her representative to speak about the state of the toilets. Toilets are often a problem for all the children so this request will not single out your child.
• Here‘s a letter from a School Council in Gloucestershire: “Thank you for your helpful website information. We used your fact sheet on ‘What pupils can do’, we conducted a survey (we used the one on your website), told our classes what people said in the survey, and made a folder of all things that needed to be improved (with photos) and gave it to our governors. Our school toilets are now going to be redecorated.”
• Having improved the toilets you’ll want them to stay nice. The Bog Standard campaign has produced a set of Toilet Checklists for Schools to photocopy and use. Their aim is to promote high standards in the cleanliness and maintenance of pupils’ toilets and to involve pupils in their management. http://www.bog-standard.org/adults_resources.aspx

For further advice visit the ERIC Bog Standard website www.bog-standard.org . There’s a section for children too.