Reform councillor says parents must toilet train children

Coun Sonia Simm said teachers and staff were having to spend time that should be spent in the classroom changing nappies and teaching youngsters to use the toilet.

Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that around one in four children across the country who started reception in 2025 were not toilet trained following a survey of school staff by charity Kindred Squared.

The survey also showed that 28 per cent of children were unable to eat and drink independently and a quarter were struggling with other basic life skills.

Speaking at Thursday’s meeting of Northumberland County Council’s Family and Children’s Services scrutiny committee, Ashington councillor Sonia Simm said parents needed to step up.

She said: “I find in a number of schools that children are going into early years and they’re not toilet trained, they’re in nappies. We have children who are six or seven struggling to go – parents need to be taking accountability for their children.

“When my oldest child went to school, children weren’t allowed in until they knew how. They weren’t allowed in if they didn’t know how.

“There’s too much blame on Covid saying Covid delayed things. Covid didn’t stop parents teaching children to use the toilet.

“A lot of school teachers’ time is taken up toilet training and changing nappies. That’s not what they’re there for.

“Parents need to be more accountable.”

The Government has set a target of 75 per cent of children starting school to be “school ready” by 2028. As part of this, councils are required to develop their own “best start” local plans to show how they will meet this target.

Northumberland was a trailblazer for the Family Hub system – successors to the Sure Start Centres that provide support for families and children from conception up until the young person is 18, or 25 if they have additional needs.

The hubs are intended to act as the front door for families, bringing together universal, targeted and specialist services in a “single, accessible model” that help to “identify needs earlier and provide coordinated support before challenges escalate”.

Responding to Coun Simm’s comments, cabinet member for children’s services Coun Guy Renner-Thompson said: “Teachers shouldn’t have to be social workers or surrogate parents, but there are parents that need help to make sure teachers don’t have to pick up the slack later on.

“We want children to spend their time in the classroom learning. The whole ethos of the family hubs is to be a broader umbrella so include NHS, include social care and start at conception all the way through to the age of 18.

“I have a one-year-old and we’re about to have another baby. We go to the family hub in Alnwick and it’s wonderful to see the services in action.

“That’s the whole ethos of the family hub – to make sure those scenarios that Sonia has brought up don’t happen.”

Director of Education, SEND and Skills David Street added: “The vast majority of children in Northumberland are able to go to the toilet.”