What is normal in secondary school re: using toilets?

And of course in TV school dramas the toilets are never locked because it's mandatory that pupils must be able to access them at all times to give birth to surprise babies

What do you mean by that kind of school? I'm pretty sure teenagers smoke, truant, vandalise and bully in every school in the country.

The vandalism was mostly wet paper towels on the ceiling to be fair. Or they used to throw them as missiles into a closed cubicle, so they landed on someone's head/lap which was hilarious apparently

My DC's school go through phases of locking the toilets during lessons, it's not that kind of school, but now and again a few boys might get silly at one break time and throw wet paper towels at the ceiling, or the girls will leave the floor covered in crushed pringles boaks at thought of eating in the toilet. These stay in place for several days at most really though as it is so much hassle, and diaries are just signed the rest of the time, although going to the toilet during class is generally discouraged with pupils having to ask several times before being allowed (apart from if the teacher can sense a girl needs to change sanpro).

Never heard of the loos being locked but even in my primary school I actively discourage children above the age of about 8 to go during lessons.
Unless they have a medical reason (which I would know about) I would expect a child to be able to wait and hour before needing a wee.
I do let them is they ask more than once but I would mainly expect it to be unnecessary.

I wonder if your dc go to the school i work at Lynette!! That is exactly the procedure at our school.

Completely normal here too. Lessons are only an hour long and unless a student has a toilet pass for medical reasons, they are not allowed to leave the room.

I've never worked in a school where the toilets have been locked during lesson time, but we always discourage pupils from asking during lessons. They have break time and lunchtime to go to the toilet and they can generally go in lesson changeover as long as they leave lessons promptly and don't dawdle. Every school I have worked in has some system to allow pupils to the toilet if necessary, mostly cards in case they are found roaming the corridor.

In my secondary school 10 years ago it was absolutely normal and it was horrible. Toilets were locked at break and lunch times except for the last ten minutes of each. Frequently they forgot to unlock them at all, and they had sadistic prefects on duty at lunchtimes preventing you from going to the "wrong" year group's toilets because you of course quickly got to know which were unlocked and which weren't. I remember one of my friends being in tears telling a prefect that she really needed to change a tampon and they laughed at her but then let her go (but not the rest of us ) You could go during lessons but of course you had to ask and the teachers would get annoyed about it.

It was supposed to prevent smoking in the toilets and vandalism and bullying. It was brought up several times in general discussion but they didn't change the policy.

Discouraged to go during lessons here but in reality if you really need to go you will be allowed.

DS (year 7) tells me that at his school, if they need the loo during a lesson they ask the teacher, who then writes a note in their school planner giving them permission to go, in case another teacher sees them in a corridor and asks why they're not in their lesson. Never heard of toilets being locked, that's just cruel.

Not allowing pupils to go to the toilet during lesson time is quite usual, as it prevents bunking off/vandalism/bullying etc and it's also a waste of lesson time. Most pupils are free to go in between lesson changes. However i've never heard of the toilets being locked before - that must be so much effort on the schools behalf.

Definetly not the.norm in any secondary school I.know of and would make me look elsewhere.

(1) what kind of things have happened to make them so draconian? Seems rather than deal with that theyve locked the loos
(2) as the mum of a dd I would hate to think of her flooding her san pro and not being able to get easy permitted access to a loo to sort herself out