Things Teachers Say...

"it's the last day of the year? oh course I'm not going to let you kids watch a movie!"

...the push your buttons

For me

Student: Can I go to the toilet?
Teacher: I don't know, can you?
Student:

What about you?

"It's the last day of the year. I'm exhausted and there's nothing I'd like more than to put on a movie but I don't dare since those pushy parents wrote a letter of complaint about me doing so to the Chair of Governors last summer."

Unless you have a medical condition you should use the toilet at break, lunchtime or the transition being lessons. Have you ever seen your teacher walk out of a lesson to have a pee? There are plenty of other jobs where toilet access is not a given.

There are many reasons why your teacher is reluctant to let you out. I'm sure you just need to pee but some of your peers have very different motives. The least sinister is to avoid work. When students are unsupervised they remain the legal responsibility of the school. There have been numerous cases of children self-harming and even attempting suicide on site when let out to use the toilet. It is often used as an opportunity for vandalism - think of the poor caretaker who has to clean dirty protests off the walls and out of the sinks. Smoking, bullying and arranging meetings with other students are other issues.

"It's the last day of the year. I'm exhausted and there's nothing I'd like more than to put on a movie but I don't dare since those pushy parents wrote a letter of complaint about me doing so to the Chair of Governors last summer."

a parent complained? about kids watching movies on the last day? what soul destroyers and they shouldn't have listened to those parents anyway

"that kid at the back won't stop talking, therefore I'm giving the whole class a detention!" (true story)

This happened a few times at my first high school.

An entire class of behaving students shouldn't be punished because of your inability to control one pupil, you absolute eejit.

You wouldn't believe the complaints schools receive. A parent at one of our feeder Primary Schools wrote to her M.P. to complain she had seen her child's teacher enter a pub at the weekend.

you wouldn't believe the policies some of my old schools took
I used to go to this private school and they had this massive playground area that sloped down, and just because one kid fell down and rolled across the playground with some grazes they fenced off the entirety of it so the only thing that was left was this tiny little area down at the bottom which was the flat area (for the younger years; the older years got a bigger playground so it was a real slap in the face at the time)
and also, one kid climbed this small wall and fell off it and hurt himself and due to that they fenced off the entire area, not just the wall, but the little steps where the wall was near to...jeez.
and at my middle school (state school) my friend's sister slipped over on the ice during a snowy-period and because of that they ended break really early and they didn't let us out at lunch time - the one day of many many years when it happened to snow and they didn't let us go outside for it good grief

Me: Miss I really need to pee
Teacher: Can't you hold it in, you only have to wait for 3 mins. It's not like they would close the doors
Me: Fine

3 mins later

Teacher:.... And that's all you need to know, you're dismissed
Me: Thank God, bye!

Running out of the door, I went to the comfort room and saw a guy closing the door.

Me: Excuse me, I really need to pee
Guy: Sorry kid, you should have gone 3 mins ago. We were ordered to close all the loos by the principal.
Me: NOOOOO!

An entire class of behaving students shouldn't be punished because of your inability to control one pupil, you absolute eejit.

Covering their backsides against legal action.