Kate Hawkesby: Why are we treating students like prisoners?

Aurora College claims the toilets are locked so they don't get vandalised. Photo / 123RF

So we've got cardboard guns in preschools, but at a school, an 11-year-old girl narrowly escaped an embarrassing accident when she couldn't find a teacher to unlock the school toilets.

That's right. They were locked. She desperately searched the school for a teacher who could unlock them, so she could use the loo. The only teacher she found, according to her dad, didn't have a key. Being able to use a toilet at school, is surely a basic fundamental human right. So why on Earth are they locked?

The school, Aurora College, claims they're locked so they don't get vandalised. The principal says locking them is necessary to keep them in a fit state, and to remind students to use them responsibly. She's standing by her locked loo rule.

So does a principal have a right to lock up the toilets? Well according to the ministry's national guidelines, "toilets are to be available for use during the school's opening hours".

So why's she locking them? If worrying about toilets being vandalised is a big issue at your school, why don't you patrol them, rather than locking them? Why don't you have consequences in place for anyone found or seen trashing the toilets?

Better yet, why don't you educate your students on how to behave in society where toilets aren't locked, so that when they wind up out in the real world, they actually know how to use one? Why are you wasting teachers' time by dragging them out of the classroom to unlock a toilet every time a student needs to use the loo? Why are you treating students like prisoners?

Having to run round to find a teacher to unlock a loo when you need to go shouldn't even be on the radar of things for kids to worry about at school.

Which leads me to Family First this week and their latest outrage: new rules regarding restraining children at school undermine adults' authority. New rules require schools to report on any incidents where children are physically restrained.

It means schools have to be accountable for how they physically treat students. You know the stories, the ones we hear about "difficult" kids being locked in small rooms - sadly often autistic or ADHD children - because teachers can't cope with the behaviour, so physically restrain them, sometimes in ways that are inappropriate.

Family First says these new rules, combined with the anti-smacking law, have created a chilling effect whereby parents and teachers are now too scared to physically control or restrain children.

"Children have received the message that adults cannot touch them," Family First said.

That's right! You can't touch them.

If we're going to keep treating students like second-rate citizens, or prisoners, locking up their toilets, and rejecting attempts to monitor how they're physically treated, then we're denying them basic human rights.

I understand the stress of having to deal with the occasional rogue student, or to try to protect against the one or two toilet vandals, but locking the loos, and treating all students like criminals, is not going to fix the problem.