Girls assaulted by teenage boy in mixed sex school toilet in Essex school

I read this article earlier. Fed up of females being at the mercy of males just so trans people don't get their feelings hurt. It is dangerous.

When I was at school the group of girls who bullied me once attempted to kick the toilet door in on me. One of the most terrifying experiences of my life. It was bad enough having to go in there not knowing if they were around or not. I certainly wouldn't have been comfortable using a mixed sex toilet, and this case shows exactly why. Safety in schools is bad enough without making it worse.

It’s not about toilet design.

It’s about keeping toilets single sex, and it’s about senior staff in schools prioritising safeguarding above every other consideration, and keeping their schools free of sexual assaults. It’s not very much to ask; in fact, it should be a “given”.

Thanks for that.

Schools are required to provide separate lavatories for children aged eight and over, but a recent report by the Policy Exchange think tank found that 28 per cent were failing to do so.

There have been a number of concerns raised about mixed-sex facilities, including after a <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.md/o/TC20M/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/15/boys-go-take-photos-girls-schools-unisex-loos/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">female pupil was injured in Coventry when a schoolboy kicked open her door in unisex lavatories.

Has there been something in the water destroying people's common sense?

Clearly toilet design needs to be really thought about carefully.

Absolutely.

I don't think that making my school's mixed sex toilets single sex would make any difference in terms of safety for girls because of how they are set up.

I would like to know what the set-up was at the school in the OP.

In one teaching block I taught at, there was mix sex one loo opening on to a corridor. The girls wouldn’t use it as the boys would stand outside to listen for the crinkly noise of tampon/towel wrappers and cheer.

Clearly toilet design needs to be really thought about carefully.

Yes it's proven beyond a shadow of doubt but the response will still be

But boys could go in single sex spaces
But girls do it too
But
But
But made up bollox.

There's certain people not worth engaging with besides none of the schools I know of actually have enough corridor space to provide all those toilets, they're taken up with lockers or class room doors. There is one near me that could possibly be described like that but in real terms the corridor is the old communal toilet area, oddly enough that school is currently rated as special measures due to serious issues with misogyny among other things

Yes but presumably no-one would notice if a boy goes into a unisex / mixed sex toilet but if a boy goes into a single sex toilet it's far more likely to be noticed and the girls in that toilet can challenge his presence in there.

I still don't think you're getting the set-up I'm describing. If a girl is in the mixed sex toilet then a boy isn't getting in because the door is locked. If a boy follows a girl into their toilet cubicle, then that would be as noticeable if the toilet were single sex, or mixed, because both open onto the corridor and seeing two pupils going into one cubicle at the same time is pretty obvious, presumably more so if one is objecting.

Not to mention that sex, pregnancy/maternity and disability are legally protected characteristics meant to be factored into risk assessments.

Not having kids bunk off lessons isn't.

This exactly. I'm running the fuck out of patience for the people who are supposed to be responsible for my children's safety exposing them to the risk of harm based on bullshit reasoning.

Yes, exactly.

Rank your risks/harms.

Vandalism and vaping is a lesser harm than sexual assault.

Bullying is a problem, yes, but perhaps this can also be addressed through other means than trying to eliminate every potential unobserved space in the school.

Boys assaulting girls is going to have worse outcomes than girls assaulting girls, to put it in the bluntest of terms.

I'm fucking sick of the 'oh well if you're raped you can report it' and what - be retruamatised by the police with a virtually zero chance of success in court?

Fuck off. I want my daughter protected, not to have some fucking half arsed attempt to pick up the pieces once she's damaged for life.

I want single sex toilets and thankfully my school has them. Only single sex (they might have the odd gender neutral one for the odd trans child - but the majority of toilets are clearly labelled female or male).

Why should other girls in state education have less protection than my daughter? Why are some schools protecting girls while others aren't?

I bet you could look at Everyone's invited and I bet you'd find sexual assaults greater in schools with more mixed sex toilets. How much fucking evidence do we need before girls get the tiniest amount of common sense protection?

Yes but presumably no-one would notice if a boy goes into a unisex / mixed sex toilet but if a boy goes into a single sex toilet it's far more likely to be noticed and the girls in that toilet can challenge his presence in there.

I refer you to the statistics earlier in the thread which demonstrate that rates of sexual assault are FAR FAR higher ALWAYS in mixed sex spaces. It's statistically proven.

Oh, and no one's watching the CCTV. If there's an incident, then SLT can access the CCTV to see who was around the toilets at the time.

So it depends on the child reporting the assault? That’s not best prevention.

Well yes, but as I pointed out, in my school's set up, they could push a girl into a single sex toilet as easily as a mixed one as both open to the corridor.

Well not unless the physically stronger male pushes them in there to rape them of c course...

I think between bunking off lessons together in a cubicle ( one which you will be seen with a gap under the door ) and a girl bleeding badly from a miscarriage or choking on vomit hidden from site , its the lesser if two evils

It's safer for girls to be able to congregate in spaces where there are gaps under the doors than share toilets with boys with no gaps.

They don't actually go into the cubicle with a boy. In terms of its proper use, it's no different to a single sex toilet with no gap.

Girls also bully, vandalise and vape.

Gangs of girls chatting about the boys they fancied, sharing jokes, putting on make-up. But probably intimidating to the Year 7 girls nevertheless. The collective noun maybe should have been a gossip of girls.

Maybe the gangs of girls were hiding from the rapist boys.

Just because girls hang out together in the only space they have away from boys does not automatically mean they're up to no good.

As a teacher, when I did toilet inspections, I cleared out the gangs of girls.

That there were gangs of girls who needed to be cleared out demonstrates the issue there.

When you have seen an arm sticking out of the the gap at the bottom of a girls toilet door and failed to push open the door (they are collapsed against it) then it focuses your mind as to the safety of toilets. Luckily one of us shimmied over the top and opened it from the inside. She was grey, unconscious and covered in vomit which we removed from the back of her throat, put her in the recovery position and called an ambulance.

As a teacher, when I did toilet inspections, I cleared out the gangs of girls. At one time we had a bomb alert. Sweeping the toilets for missing children on the register was much easier, making sure everyone was accounted is much easier and quicker in boys or girls toilets with door gaps. It the cubicle door was jammed I knew no one was in it very quickly. It is also easy to see 2 pairs of feet are in a cubicle.

There aren't any 'safe' answers to this.

If you want gaps under the doors, they can't be visible from the corridor. If they're not visible from the corridor, then you have a large, unsupervised space where pupils can congregate, and this is also not safe.