To be upset that toilets at primary school turned mixed sex without being told

Some children, girls or boys, may have fears about using toilets other than at home. Parents should have been made aware in case this fear resurrected itself or is made worse.

Even if legal, which I have some doubts on.

Discombobulated. Love that word.

That is fine if the KS2 ones are floor to ceiling, but often schools are converting toilets by relabelling them without making cubicles floor to ceiling and including handwashing.

There has always been mixed sex toilets at my kids school - ks1 3 cubicles directly off the classrooms with a row of sinks and ks2 individual cubicles with hand washing facilities inside. I've got no problem with that at all.

Safe Schools Alliance has some relevant resources. E.g. a fact sheet here
safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/factsheets/#Single_Sex_Toilets_and_Changing_Facilities_factsheet

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/schools-resources-and-policies/

Small children are not the best judges of what's a good idea, or a safe system, or most dignified for others.

That's not your fault as a child; it would be a shame if children were blamed for their immaturity. It's the job of adults to keep them safe.

97% of women age 18-24 have been sexually harassed / assaulted. We should be teaching little girls to have strong boundaries, and be careful about going with males into spaces where females are vulnerable, not forcing girls to pull down their knickers with boys laughing about it on the other side of the door.

I'm surprised you were told to use the little girls loo! When I volunteered (with DBS) I was told I must only ever use the staff toilets. In fact when my then 3 year old really needed the loo at pick-up school said she could but had to use the staff toilets.

I'm not sure I would see it as an issue. My friends and I always used the opposite sex toilets on purpose at primary school, to challenge the idea that we should be sex-segregated.

Ugggh I'd be writing to complain about this.

They should be providing single sex toilets.

Even young girls can feel very uncomfortable going to the toilet around boys whether they've hit puberty or not.

It's almost as if we are trying to teach our youngest girls that they don't need to have boundaries.

How does self-contained floor to ceiling doors work with four year olds who lock themselves in and won’t/ can’t come out? Or special needs kids who get stuck in there? Or children who get ill and faint? Toilets were designed with a gap under the door for safety reasons, it’s not decorative.

Why should the original safety design be made less safe to indulge the desire of some males to intrude into female soaces where they aren’t welcome?

Isn’t that illegal I think? Ask safe schools alliance for advice (and maybe also nspcc who have great guidelines on eg single sex changing at school), but I’m pretty sure schoolchildren are legally entitled to single sex toilets.

Get facts sorted then write to head / governors / Ofsted. It’s not ok. Tell the head that the parents are furious and that this will definitely come up in the Ofsted parent questionnaire at inspection time.

Boys wee all over the seat and do not clear it up. Girls sit on the seat. Many girls start their period at primary school, some at age 9, and they have a right to wash the blood off their hands without boys staring at it.

Ugh some people are so naive about how girls get treated by boys.

And what about male visitors to the school? When I’ve volunteered at school I was told to use the little girls loo. Are adult men going to be sent into the same toilet as little girls? If so I’m sure the local paedo community will have plenty of volunteers 😭

It's statistically true that most children haven't started puberty until secondary school, but only because boys start puberty later. The average age of onset of puberty is just under 11 years in girls, so most girls will have started puberty before they leave primary school. Around 12% - 15% will have started periods, so 2-3 girls in an average class.

Fine if self contained. Not fine if not.
it’s been a while, but DC’s primary was single sex.

Oh that's fine.

An awful lot of schools however seem to go to mixed sex toilets (aka gender neutral) by changing the sign on a door, and still having cubicles with gaps at top and bottom, and shared handwash facilities.

It’s not legal.

What you describe sound legal in that they are fully contained but at my DD old school they had a bathroom with a few cubicles each with a toilet in and with sinks in the room but outside of the toilets. They were separated by sex and must be by law when they get to a certain age.

Not acceptable. Not even legal. I think there's some good template letters circulating now for you to send. Girls need single sex, and by that I mean their actual sex, not the one they identify as.
This has been a very costly mistake for all those companies/corporations who failed to ask for womens opinions on this/or even consider for a moment what they need and why.

Oh, ours are all self-contained (floor to ceiling with hand washing facilities, opening directly onto the corridor). Also means that children with medical or SEN needs can be assisted in privacy.

I assumed that would be standard, unless you are in an old Victorian building or something. DS’s school was built in the 70s.

most haven't hit puberty until secondary

I could name four girls in DD's class who started periods in year 5 or 6. And I assume there were more, as those were just the ones she knew about.

Why make life any harder for girls already going through puberty that bit younger than the average?

@Changechangychange In Infants they can be mixed sex. In juniors they are required to be single sex or fully floor to ceiling cubicles with handwashing facilities. The link @Sickoffamilydrama provided explains things well.

Ours were mixed sex in primary back in the 1980s and DS’s school are all mixed sex - I didn’t realise any primary schools had single sex toilets! Why would you, they are usually individual cubicles anyway.

In Reception there were two self-contained toilet cubicles just off the actual classroom (like a disabled toilet). Now in KS1 there are 2-3 self contained cubicles in the corridor between the four classrooms. All open straight out onto the corridor. It would be totally ridiculous to have some labelled “boys” and some labelled “girls”.

I wouldn't be happy about that at all. I could perhaps accept it if each cubicle was completely private with no space to look over or under around the sides or the door. Girls age 8+ are starting periods, some boys are probably seeing secondary sexual characteristics change. Children are silly and things like peering into another cubicle as a group of girls to a boy or a group of boys to a girl would probably happen. It's awful to think that a child might have their privacy compromised when also trying to handle periods/body changes etc.