by Jacqui Pratlett

Created on: June 14, 2010

This thorny issue is one that teachers often discuss in the staff room, and they reach the conclusion that there is no right or wrong answer. This is my opinion based on my own experience teaching in secondary schools.

Having worked in an exceptionally challenging school, I have seen pupils abusing their ‘right’ to go to the toilet during lesson time every day. In such a school, it is a constant battle to maintain you authority in the classroom. These pupils are switched on to how to outsmart you – and if you let one go, the whole class will follow. These pupils often don’t return from their trip to the toilets, or if they do return bring with them a cloud of cigarette smoke. In these cases you must have the right as their teacher to say no.

The same issues occur in outstanding schools. I was once told that all schools are inherently the same, with the same issues and problems, just on different scales. Whatever school you teach in there will always be a number of pupils who abuse the right they feel they have to leave you lesson when they feel like it. Rather than the sneaky cigarette you would leave for in the challenging school, it could be that the work is getting that little bit too hard, or a sensitive subject is being brought up. This still means a pupil in your class feels they have the right to decide which parts of your lesson they should stay for, and which they can miss out as and when they decide.

Consistency is the main decider in this aspect, and as any teacher will know, it is down to the school. Every school has different rules and expectations. For example, one school I worked in had a toilet pass system. Those students who were medically allowed to use the toilet when necessary had a pass that you were aware of, and all the other students were aware of. If you didn’t have a toilet pass, you didn’t go to the toilet in lessons. Another school had a very different system; so long as a student had a note from their teacher, they were allowed to go whenever they felt they needed to. No teacher was ever encouraged to decline the request of pupils, and it was commonly accepted that lessons were an appropriate time to leave for the toilet.

Personally, I feel we are failing our students by allowing them to come and go as they please. One of the main reasons school is so important in these young people’s lives is the transferable skills it teaches them. We are preparing them for life beyond school, which for

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