17 November 2023 , 10:11
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A seething primary school teacher has said it's not her job to potty train children, after a mum dropped off her six-year-old child, who had not been potty trained, at school without nappies.
The teacher was left outraged when the mum recently forgot her son's spare set of clothes and nappies, and despite saying she would come back with them, never did. Instead, when she called her 90 minutes later, after the child had an accident, the mum had said: "I don't have time! He's at school so it's your problem now."
Writing in the Daily Mail, the unnamed teacher said: "But she's wrong. Nappy-changing very definitely isn't in my teaching job description. Particularly because the child in question wasn't a toddler, but a six-year-old."
According to the primary school teacher, who is a mum herself, this isn't a one-off situation. She explained that parents "sadly" will regularly have this "blasé" attitude to teaching their kids how to use the toilet. She continued: "In fact, this slapdash approach towards children's welfare is becoming the norm, especially among many affluent families."
The 33-year-old explained that it's so common in her school, which is situated in a "well-to-do middle-class town in the south of England", that they have a fully equipped changing station, as well as a bank of spare clothes and nappies, which the school's budget pays for. However, in this situation they didn't have any nappies to hand, so a teaching assistant had to go to a shop to buy nappies for the "poor child". She continued: "This six-year-old was particularly socially aware. He was incredibly embarrassed that I had to sort him out and put on a fresh nappy."
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Currently, she teaches children aged four to six, but the teacher explained that over 11 years of teaching, she has dealt with children aged up to seven who "still aren't toilet-trained". That's why she was "horrified" by mum-of-four Shona Sibary's recent confession that she had sent her four-year-old to school without potty-training, because she was focusing on work instead. This came after comments made by MP Miriam Cates, who slammed mums who returned to work quickly after having a baby - and didn't potty train them before starting school, something Shona hadn't done with her youngest child Dolly.
The comments made by the MP were that mothers were "leaving their small children in day care" due to the "GDP-obsessed economic system" as they are demanded to return to work. Because of this, she stressed that there had been a "number of young children who start schooling in the UK still wearing nappies".
Meanwhile, the teacher explained that others like her feel "furious" that parents, who are quite often middle-class, are leaving them to "clean up their mess." The teacher, who some days feel like she doesn't have time to teach at all, is now planning on leaving the profession next year.