Dear Parents and Carers,
Monitoring Toilet Visits During Lesson Time
As part of our ongoing work to support students’ learning, wellbeing and readiness for examinations, we will be introducing a system to monitor and record visits to the toilet during lesson time. This is an approach adopted by many schools and is intended to help us better understand and support the needs of our students.
We want to encourage students to develop positive routines by using the toilets at appropriate times, such as before school, during break and at lunchtime. However, we fully recognise that there will be occasions when students need to visit the toilet urgently during a lesson, and we will continue to respond sensitively and appropriately to these situations.
To help us monitor this, toilet visits during lessons will be recorded on our school behaviour system. Although these visits will appear as a ‘behaviour’ entry, they will not generate a behaviour point or be treated as a behaviour sanction. The entry is simply a record that a student has visited the toilet during lesson time, allowing us to identify any patterns that may require further consideration or support.
The purpose of this approach is not to prevent students from accessing the toilets, but to ensure that we are supporting their learning and wellbeing effectively. In particular, recording these visits will help us to:
- Protect valuable learning time: Regularly leaving lessons can mean students miss important explanations, activities and opportunities to develop their understanding. Monitoring visits will help us identify where learning time may be affected.
- Identify potential medical or wellbeing needs: Frequent visits may indicate an underlying medical condition, anxiety or another need that has not previously been identified. Recognising patterns will allow us to work with students and families to explore whether additional support is required.
- Prepare students for examinations: During formal examinations, opportunities to leave the examination room may be limited, and doing so can interrupt concentration and reduce the time available to complete an examination. Encouraging positive routines now will help students prepare for these important periods and give them the best opportunity to demonstrate what they know and can do.
- Improve communication with families: Having an accurate record will allow us to share any concerns with parents and carers, helping us work together to understand and address patterns where necessary.
- Develop independence and personal responsibility: Encouraging students to manage their routines appropriately, wherever possible, helps develop habits that will benefit them throughout their education and beyond.
We want to reassure families that students with identified medical needs, SEND requirements or other circumstances that necessitate additional toilet access will continue to be supported appropriately. We recognise that every student’s circumstances are different, and any concerns arising from these records will be considered sensitively and on an individual basis.
We would appreciate your support in encouraging your child to make use of the toilets before school, during break and at lunchtime wherever possible. At the same time, we want students to feel confident that genuine urgent needs will be treated with understanding.
If your child has a medical condition or other need that may require more frequent toilet access, and you have not already informed the school, please contact us so that we can ensure the appropriate support is in place.
Kind regards,
Peter Batchelor
Assistant Headteacher
