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.
- 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?
- 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!