The law on mixed sex toilets in schools

[Barracker]

Can someone help with the specifics of this please?
I know the law requires separate sex loos in secondary schools (UK).
What I don't know is how many are specified to meet the requirements. I also don't know if mixed sex loos actually breach the requirements entirely, or if it's permissable to have some as long as the same sex provision is adequate.

My daughter's school provides some girl only loos within the sports changing rooms. Not easy to get to from the opposite end of the secondary school.
But
The MAIN loos in the school are like this:
An open plan room off a busy corridor. There's no door into this room it's just a large open 'foyer' space. Large bank of cubicles either side of a central washing area. The whole room is wide open to the corridor. You can be standing in the corridor, watching kids go in, choose a cubicle, come out, wash hands, leave. I've attached a pic of a similar set up except in my daughter's school the basins afford less privacy because there's no floor to ceiling barrier like on this pic.
You can hear, obviously.
The whole set up of the pic is visible from the busy corridor.
Boys use the left side of the bank of cubicles, girls the right, but they're all part of the same open plan room. They all wash together at the basins.

Now. Questions.

1. Is it enough legally to provide a few compliant (and not very accessible) same-sex loos, whilst the major toileting facilities are mixed-sex as I've described? Or are there very specific ratios of numbers and accessibility of same sex provision?
2. Is it even permissable at all to have a huge, primarily mixed sex set up as I've described? Completely open to the corridor?

Obviously it's a yuck situation but I would like to know more about the legislation and what specifically it dictates.

Thanks to anyone who knows and doesn't mind taking the time to explain specifics!

Not commenting on rights or wrongs, and very strongly of the opinion that girls need their own toilets, away from boys. But I think a lot of new school builds had toilets open to corridors as students report that closed toilet areas are one of the places they feel vulnerable to bullying.

Bump.

How does the school suggest girls deal with sanitary products such as mooncups in such a set-up? Or even washing their hands after dealing with menstrual blood. Is anyone actually engaging their brains anymore. I despair but I also am very hopeful that as soon as there is a legal challenge against institutions who are jeopardising the safety and dignity of girls we will all come together and support it, as per the ongoing Maya case.

If your daughter's school mixed sex toilets do not provide floor-to-ceiling cubicles complete with handwashing facilities, they're breaking the law on single-sex provision.

The floor to ceiling cubicles and doors that are lockable from the inside are both important.

The question is whether there are hand basins in the cubicles.

And I would also want to know if there are separate standing urinals, which I think there should not be .. but that doesn't relate to the law.

Exactly what Vicky has said. The doors should be floor to dealing. I absolutely hate the fact that our children are being FORCED to lower their own personal barriers. It’s disgusting.

How does the school suggest girls deal with sanitary products such as mooncups in such a set-up? Or even washing their hands after dealing with menstrual blood.

Presumably the same way as any other? You empty a mooncup down the toilet in the cubicle, not in the communal hand basins. You wipe it out with loo roll if needed. If you get blood on your hands, you wipe it off again using loo roll, or wipes if you carry them - you are going to get blood all over your clothes and the door handle if you don't en route to the basins! Basically - exactly the same as anywhere else. I am a moon cup user too, I have never either brought it into the public area of single sex loos or seen anyone else doing so. There may be issues with these loos but this isn't one of them.

Bearing in mind erratic periods when starting out- How are they meant to deal with washing out blood stained pants and drying them out under the hand drier to wear again, with boys around them?

I am really angry that so many schools and architects are disregarding the law.

If the toilets are mixed sex the basins are supposed to be inside self contained cubicles.
They are supposed to be in addition to single sex toilets which are easily accessible and must be provided. They are not optional.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/719398/Gender-separation-guidance.pdf

ISS Regulation 23A — (1) Subject to sub-paragraph (2), the standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that—

b) separate toilet facilities for boys and girls aged 8 years or over are provided except where the toilet facility is provided in a room that can be secured from the inside and that is intended for use by one pupil at a time.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/410294/Advice_on_standards_for_school_premises.pdf

Because the setup illustrated here does not include the basin within the cubicles, these are multi-entry* toilets, that is several people can use these at the same time (allowing multiple simultaneous instances of entry to this facility).

The only multi-entry toilets that are legally permissible in schools are single-sex toilets.

The only mixed-sex facilities that are legally permissible in schools are single-entry toilets. The latter are more generally called unisex toilets because they can be used by either sex but only ever by one sex at a time (because only a single person can use them at any one time).

What you have illustrated and described are multi-entry mixed-sex toilets which are expressly forbidden by school regulations in Scotland, Wales and England (and presumably Northern Ireland too but I am not sure about that).

There are no mirrors?

Not being funny and it seems trivial but teenage girls and boys are both very interested in their appearance, many are paranoid about it.

I suppose they'll all buy hand mirrors :/

To PP you may never have got sticky blood on your hands but plenty have. I never understand why some insist that their experience must be universal.

Presumably the same way as any other? You empty a mooncup down the toilet in the cubicle, not in the communal hand basins. You wipe it out with loo roll if needed. If you get blood on your hands, you wipe it off again using loo roll, or wipes if you carry them - you are going to get blood all over your clothes and the door handle if you don't en route to the basins! Basically - exactly the same as anywhere else. I am a moon cup user too, I have never either brought it into the public area of single sex loos or seen anyone else doing so. There may be issues with these loos but this isn't one of them.

JFC. We're talking about 11-year-old girls coping with this while in the company and full view of 17-year-old boys. What the fuck is the matter with a person who can't see the fucking issue?

When we were visiting secondary schools we noticed that a lot of them had gone for open unisex toilets like these. As a pp said it's all to do with not having an area where bullying can take place.

I was very pleased that DD got a place in a Girls school.

So far as I can see this is compliant with the requirement that "Separate toilet facilities for boys and girls aged 8 years or over must be provided except where the toilet facility is provided in a room that can be secured from the inside and that is intended for use by one pupil at a time", provided that the cubicles are floor to ceiling The previous subsection refers to "suitable toilet and washing facilities" but only requires the toilet facilities to be separate, not the washing facilities. The guidance linked above is non-statutory and doesn't reflect what the regulations actually say.

Acis the interpretation of room to mean an entire block of toilets is compliant is of course incorrect.

The word room refers to a single-entry room which contains the entire toilet facility consisting of a toilet and a sink. This is either provided by one room containing both or an ante-room containing the wash basin and a further room containing just the toilet. This is specified in the regulations governing provisions for people with disabilities.

The picture shown here shows a multi-entry room containing cubicles ie your bog standard toilet block albeit without a wall or door separating it from the corridor.

The problem with that, CharlieParley, is that one subsection refers to toilet and washing facilities, whilst the next refers only to toilet facilities. That strongly implies that washing facilities don't have to be in the same room as toilet facilities. A space which is totally enclosed by the walls and door is a room.

(Wiping out a moon cup with a wetwipe is shortcut to thrush/bv/internal dermatitis - please don’t suggest it, Mugwumpery holy fuck, ouch!)

Surely mooncups aren't emptied into a sink are they?

Surely mooncups aren't emptied into a sink are they?

No, but you are supposed to wash them with unperfumed soap and then rinse thoroughly with running water before reinsertion.

In a pinch, you can rinse it out with bottled water over the loo but you are advised to clean it properly as soon as you are able.

A space which is totally enclosed by the walls and door is a room. The larger space is not closed off by a door, sometimes not even by a wall, therefore by your definition not a room.

Multi-entry facilities at school ie blocks of toilets must be segregated by sex, individual cubicles can be used by both. What is an individual toilet ie a unisex facility is strictly regulated. It must open onto a circulation space (ie a hallway or entry hall). The pictured facility shows a room containing two blocks of toilets. It is clearly multi-entry because the cubicles do not open directly to a circulation space but to a space which is an integral part of the sanitary facility.

The guidance also specifically refers to toilet facilities that are not segregated by sex being unisex and the latter is of course strictly regulated and even if washbasins are not mentioned, unisex facilities are individual rooms that open directly to a circulation space as I mentioned above.

But we don't really have to argue this point. The experts on toilet regulations who have written on this issue have stated that these facilities do not meet required standards and that schools cannot simply interpret them the way that suits them.

BettyDuMonde

How do you manage that in a public toilet though? You take it out and empty it into the toilet, then leave the cubicle with no sanpro and go and wash it and then go back into the toilet to re insert it? Don't you leak while you are walking backwards and forwards?

You don’t - you use the water bottle method, unless there is a sink inside the cubicle, which is the definition of a single-user toilet, unlike the ones in the picture.

Or alternatively, you don’t empty it at all in public - most of the cup manufacturers suggest that they can be worn for a full 12 hours - of course, that will vary from woman to woman.
New users (including those who are suffering from those vile periods that afflict some teenagers) might want to empty it more often.

Regardless of the type of sanitary protection used, most girls/women won’t want to wash menstrual blood off their hands in front of most boys/men, and most boys/men won’t want to see it either.

Privacy and dignity should be standard for both sexes.

The larger space is not closed off by a door, sometimes not even by a wall, therefore by your definition not a room.

But the toilet facilities are in a separate room by that definition, and that is what the regulations require. They don't require that the washing facilities be in a separate room.