Wonder if others are finding the same thing? My ds started back at school yesterday, and because of the year 'bubbles' at secondary, each year is confined to its own bit of the school and only allowed to use the toilets in that part. He is in Year 10, which has around 200 kids in the year, and the only toilets allocated to their year, unbelievably, are the boys' toilets on one floor. So these have now become de facto mixed-sex toilets for all 200 children.
There are two cubicles only. There was a urinal, as it was previously the boys' toilets, which is closed off, with a sign up not to use it. The cubicles have floor to ceiling doors, and there is one trough as a sink outside the two cubicles. The outside door onto the corridor has been taken off its hinges so that, in theory, the sink area is sort of visible to those passing.
This seems bizarre and I think illegal? 2 toilets for 200 children, who are only allowed to use the toilet in the quite short breaks, does not seem sufficient. In addition, I thought that over the age of 8, boys and girls were required by law to have separate toilets?
The school may not have had any choice on this, as it may be that government guidelines specified they needed to divide the school up like this - can anyone else confirm?
Or it may be that the school are doing this deliberately, and using the Covid changes to sneak this change past the parents and pupils? The school has been Stonewalled previously, and converted one toilet block to gender neutral last year (previously a boys' toilet). This met with massive opposition from parents and from pupils, who hated using the mixed loos, and so the school rowed back from plans to convert all the toilets to mixed-sex.
I'm wondering how much this school, and other schools, are using Covid restrictions as an excuse to introduce mixed-sex toilets throughout the school? Then once the pandemic is out of the way, mixed-sex toilets will have been normalised, and there will be no way to return to the former single-sex norm.
Am I being paranoid? And is there anything I can do about it? My ds hates using the toilets now, as aside from the long queues, groups of girls stand around doing their hair/make-up in front of the mirrors throughout the breaks, and he really doesn't feel comfortable going for a wee/poo with them watching him go in/listening outside! I imagine plenty of girls feel equally uncomfortable with the arrangement - I would certainly have hated it as a teen.
Even from a Covid point of view, surely forcing 200 kids to share 200 toilets is not going to give them enough space to wash their hands etc. If any child gets coronavirus, one imagines it will spread very quickly and easily with this kind of cramped toilet and hand-washing facilities.
Thoughts?
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions
Schools re-opening post-Covid and gender-neutral toilets
66 replies
xxyzz · 05/09/2020 14:25
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.