Toileting Troubles in Class 4

The kids here use signals to let you know the reason that they need to leave the classroom:

Thumb to mouth – I need a drink.

Little finger – I need a wee

Little finger strained – I need a wee desperately

Peace sign – I need a number 2

Peace sign strained – I need a number 2 desperately

Before two weeks ago I used to let my children go to the toilet and for a drink when they said they needed to go. I thought that it was unfair to let a child aged 9 to wait to go to the toilet for an hour and a half. And if a child needs a drink they should not be denied access to the water, its bloomin’ hot out here and if I need a drink I can get one so why shouldn’t they.

The troubles only begin when all of the children need to go for the toilet at the same time. You know it’s only an excuse to go out of class together. I have been to school, I know all the tricks! So my only rule was that they were only allowed to go one at a time and they were only allowed to go to the toilet once each lesson. I would write the names of the children that had been to the toilet on the board. By the end of the lesson, the board would be full of names with only a small space to write. It was crazy how many of them seemed to need the toilet in my lesson and it was confusing me as to why they always needed to go.

So I went to the headmistress, this is when she told me that the school rule is that they aren’t allowed out of the lesson for anything. The kids can only use breaks to go for a drink and to the bathroom. She said that the children were taking advantage of the fact that I let them out of the classroom when the other teachers make them sit down and do the work no matter how much they need to go. She told me that I should not let any of the children go to the toilet, and tell them to wait till break.

The next day came around and it was time to teach class 4. We had been doing the work and all of the kids at some point had come up to me to ask me if they could go to the bathroom. Each time I told them no and when they asked why, I explained that they wait until break because the headmistress said so. They soon were quiet and sat down as they knew that I had found out. I was walking around the classroom looking at their pictures (we were drawing pictures of people and labelling the body parts). As I got to Anosha – a little boy in class 4, very sweet, but is a bit away with the fairies, takes ages to do the work and sometimes falls asleep – he stood up and made the little finger symbol to ask to go to the toilet. I told him no firmly as he had already asked twice.

The kids weren't spelling the body parts correctly so I went back to my little blackboard at the front of the classroom. As I turned my back to write, I heard:

“MISS, MISS, TOILLET, MISS”

So I turned around and sternly said to them, “we know the rules, no going to the toilet during class, wake until breaktime”.

“NO, MISS, NO, TOILETTING”

So I got more angry “yes, all of you have to wait, or you can go to the headmistress”

“NO MISS!! ANOSHA TOILETTING”

At which point I turned to Anosha, who was in his corner. He likes the corner as he thinks it’s his way of getting out of doing work. And there he was, squatting, trousers around his ankles, PEEING!! It went everywhere, all over his books, and his trousers.

Little Anosha, Class 4

I later told the headmistress. She laughed and when I think about it, it was very funny! Now if they ask more than 3 times I can let them go, but I have to keep a list and give it to the headmistress so she can see who is leaving the lessons.

No one has been doing any peeing lately – which is good news!

Hope you find it as funny as I did!

Love from India

Becca xx