Parents are not toilet training their children before they start school ATL members claim

Primary school staff in the UK say they are noticing an increase in the number of children who wet or soil themselves during the school day.

In fact, they say this increase has started during the last five years, and affects 71 per cent of those working with children aged three to five year olds (foundation stage).

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) surveyed 848 education staff working in independent, state funded and academy primary schools in the UK.

Parents not toilet training their children before they started school was cited as one of the main reasons for the increase.

One teacher and member of their school’s senior management said: “Parents do not spend the time training their children – they feel it is the school’s job. Changes in legislation meant that we could no longer say to parents that their child could not start nursery if they were still in nappies.”

General secretary of ATL, Dr Mary Bousted said: “Having to deal with increased numbers of pupils who have not yet been toilet-trained puts extra pressure on education staff when they already have enough pressure on them.

“Schools need to give staff clear guidance on how to deal with toileting accidents so that they know what they are allowed to do and who should be dealing with an incident. It is also important that education staff feel that have support from their school nurse or head, and that they know where to obtain guidance should they need it.”

Another teacher commented that children were coming into the foundation stage with less independence in general. “more children need help putting on coats, changing for PE, etc,” they said.

A further classroom teacher in the foundation stage said : “I currently have three incontinent children in my reception class. Sometimes an adult changes children up to nine times daily. This means that the education of other children suffer. I feel continually frustrated that we are being asked to manage continence issues when we are being presented with so many educational targets, too.”

But 80 per cent of those responding to the survey said that their job description says they do not deal with continence problems, that this fell to the classroom assistant – 90 per cent.

The foundation stage starts for children at the age of three years, and a classroom teacher with more realistic expectations of the very young children said: “Children are only just turning three when they start school so we know that some will not be toilet-trained and many will have accidents in the first few weeks. Extra help has been allocated so we have a full-time assistant to help deal with this so teaching is not interrupted. There are 120 children in foundation.”