Dad slams school as he’s forced to take autistic daughter home every time she needs the toilet
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dad-slams-school-hes-forced-34267713
Posted by Forward-Answer-4407
Dad slams school as he’s forced to take autistic daughter home every time she needs the toilet
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dad-slams-school-hes-forced-34267713
Posted by Forward-Answer-4407
26 Comments
British society as a whole completely fails disabled people. Even many designated special schools struggle to manage. My brother’s was still doing reception activities with him when he was 15 – it’s no wonder he acted out.
This is indignant. So much virtue signalling and we cant help those that are really in need.
You can’t really blame the school if an 11 year old can’t use the bathroom.
It won’t be £10 to fix the issue either. I doubt a public school can just do some rogue DIY without approval. It actually mentions he’s unemployed in the same paragraph, subtle dig at not knowing how the world works.
Also if they did modify the bathrooms for one student, it sets a precedent for all kinds of other tailored, specific needs that go way beyond the usual accessibility requirements.
How can it possibly cost thousands of pounds to install a toilet seat lid??
And it’s just so typical that the school has now agreed to get a lid fitted once this is in the public domain! Name and shame seems to be the only way to get businesses to act sensibly these days.
Don’t blame the schools. Schools are utterly underfunded and unable to cope with kids that have special requirements. I really worry about the future generations and our countries future. Fact is, most governments are unwilling to invest because the benefits won’t be seen for a long time when they’re unlikely to be in power.
I don’t understand how the toiled lid would resolve noise ans sensory issues?
Is this honestly a joke? You can’t just cave into Children’s every quirk and weirdness simply because they’ve got Autism. How is this girl going to survive in the real world if she’s spent her entire childhood being mollycoddled like this? She’s gonna end up a nervous wreck or a shut-in.
Schools are ridiculous with toilet policies. I’ve had times where i’ve been told i can’t go to the toilet at the end of lunch before (Which rubbed me the wrong way, moreso because i was quite clearly a 6th form student as well, so being treated like a Year 7 made be rather annoyed internally)
So are these toilets without a lid due to disrepair or because they’re designed that way?
No lids on toilets? Why? When you flush without a lid microscopic germs just go *everywhere* in the air. Gross.
You’ve got it the wrong way round. Without the world changing to meet her needs she WILL end up a nervous wreck or a shut-in
Don’t slam the school, slam years if Tory rule which decimated funding for special schools.
And yes if she can’t use a toilet without a lid then she needs a special school
I don’t get it, it seems extreme. Can they not have a TA flush or use earmuffs?
I pity school staff who have to deal with shit like this on a daily basis.
Homeschool her then, especially since the father is unemployed anyway.
I don’t understand. It’s just the lid at the top right where all the water is? They cost nothing to buy. Hell you could just put wood over it and it’ll stop a lot of the sound
What’s the deal here? There’s no way it would cost “thousands” to put a lid on an open toilet…
If it’s to do with the noise surely her dad could send her to school with ear defenders?
>but claims the school cited costs running into “thousands” as a reason for not installing one
What kind of toilet lid are they installing that costs thousands?
Sorry if it’s harsh but what’s the point? It honestly sounds like she’ll never be able to handle the real world if she can only handle 3 hours of school. Surely it would be better to just home school her? Not like the dad’s got anything else to do.
Would love to see an ounce of understanding and/or empathy in these comments… some of you sound you’d fit perfectly into the previous Assad Government.
If she has sensory issues I would have thought she’d own some sort of ear protectors for being in public or situations that where volume can not be controlled.
What an abelist pack of commenters 🤡
Maybe one day, a dose of this reality might cross your path.
There’s nonsense on all sides of this one.
Should a school just be able to put lids on some of the toilets in the school for a child like this? Yes, absolutely, it shouldn’t need hundreds of pounds of contractor fees either.
But, if you have noise issues with the flush of a toilet, put some ear defenders in your bag and learn to use those to muffle the sound. Being autistic doesn’t mean you can’t have basic problem solving skills or any responsibility for your own life experience.
And if you can only manage 3 hours of school you shouldn’t be in a mainstream school, you’re obviously not going to get a complete education that way and you’re being set up for failure.
I’d be interested to know where he lives if he’s from Barnsley and a round trip is 55 minutes. It’s not as if Barnsley is massive and the school is less than 15 mins from the town centre.
My daughter has an autoimmune disease. She misses a lot of school. Sometime calpol helped but I had to go to school to give it to her half way through the day if she needed it. School refused to give it. School would often send her home sick. Then I got shitty letters about her attendance.
My daughter’s condition means she’s susceptible to internal bleeding and she needs to go to hospital if she hits her head or stomach. School also used to not inform me when she’s had accidents that meant she should have been in a&e.
I have no idea if the system has changed drastically in 16 years since I left school or if I was particularly lucky, but I attended mainstream school as a full time wheelchair user. I was also immunocompromised, every case of childhood disease had to be reported to my mum so we could take action, and I could do school work from home. Plus I’d have stays in hospital lasting weeks which they also supported me through.
A frustrated father has hit out at a school for its failure to install a toilet lid, resulting in him taking an almost hour-long journey every time his autistic daughter needs the loo. Michael Free, aged 48, says his 11 year old daughter, who struggles with noise and sensory issues, cannot use toilets without a lid.
He had brought this to Netherwood Academy’s attention in Barnsley a year before she began there in September but claims the school cited costs running into “thousands” as a reason for not installing one. Consequently, since September, he has had no choice but to pick his daughter up and take her home each time she requires the facilities, a round-trip of 55 minutes.
Given that her sensory difficulties mean she only attends from 11am to 2pm each day, the situation is far from ideal. Yet, after the school was contacted for a statement this week, they promised to install a seat lid to meet the student’s needs.