By Shannon Pite
One in four children due to start school in September are not toilet trained, the children’s bowel and bladder charity ERIC has warned.
According to a report by early years charity Kindred, school staff are diverting 2.5 hours a day, on average, away from teaching and towards supporting children who are not toilet-trained. The report also found that 50% of parents think they are solely responsible for toilet-training their child, while one in five parents think children do not need to be toilet-trained before starting reception.
Juliette Rayner, CEO of ERIC, said: “The longer-term impact of the pandemic and cuts in recent years to many services have resulted in a lot more pressure on families and the professionals who support them, and this is affecting outcomes for children.
“There are many contributing factors that can impact a child’s ability to be toilet trained before school, and there is often a great deal of stigma and shame associated with it. As a charity, our aim is to offer a judgement-free source of advice and information to ensure that as many children as possible receive the support they need to be toilet trained for school.”
ERIC has launched a new campaign, All Aboard the Toilet Train, that aims to help more children get ready to use the toilets independently at school. More information about the campaign is available here.