\n<\/p>\n
A school where some secondary-age pupils are escorted to the toilet could be discouraging them from seeking help for periods and other health issues, a campaigner has warned.<\/b><\/p>\n
Molly Fenton, founder of the Love Your Period campaign, said she would have been unlikely to use school toilets if she had needed to be accompanied as a pupil, and said it put students “at risk”.<\/p>\n
Ebbw Fawr Learning Community in Blaenau Gwent introduced the chaperones in response to costly vandalism and excessive time spent out of lessons.<\/p>\n
Councils set a school’s toilet policies, the Welsh government said, adding they must be “accessible to all learners throughout the school day, taking into account pupils’ basic needs”.<\/p>\n
Parents were initially told that all secondary-age pupils asking to use the toilet during a lesson would be escorted by a member of the pastoral team to the entrance of the toilet block. <\/p>\n
The school then said, after meeting with 50 “pupil representatives”, that the policy would only apply to pupils on stage three of the school’s behaviour policy or persistent late attenders.<\/p>\n
“I think that this is a very broad, problematic thing… putting many people at risk,” said Fenton. <\/p>\n
The 24-year-old from Cardiff said she was “quite shocked that was even thought of”. <\/p>\n
“I started the period of campaigning when I was in school, if I had to have a chaperone come to the toilet with me, I probably would not have gone to the toilet at all as someone that was not comfortable enough to talk about periods,” she said.<\/p>\n
Fenton warned the policy could bring stigmas about using the toilet in school to “a whole new level”. <\/p>\n
She said: “We know there’s already an issue with young people not going for the toilet in school. <\/p>\n
“They’re embarrassed. They’re holding in their poo when they should be going. <\/p>\n
“When I was in school, I had really, really harrowing periods. \u2029<\/p>\n
“I was often in the school toilets, blood all over me, thinking, ‘I don’t actually know what to do in this moment and I’m stuck and I don’t know who to go to, where to go. Can I go back to class like this?'”<\/p>\n
She said she would not have trusted a chaperone enough to confide in them, a problem exacerbated by the pandemic, and that “young people are even less likely to trust authority”. <\/p>\n
“There’s a bigger conversation with that,” she said, adding “culture change” was needed to make toilets “shame and stigma free”.<\/p>\n
Ebbw Fawr Learning Community said: “To address costly vandalism and prolonged periods of absence from the classroom, the school wrote to parents several weeks ago to introduce [the] new toilets arrangement for secondary aged pupils. <\/p>\n
“Sadly the vandalism to toilets by a small minority of pupils has resulted in thousands of pounds worth of damages over recent months. <\/p>\n
“To address this the new arrangements involved learners being escorted to the toilet during the lessons either side of the lunch break, when incidents were most prevalent.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n