Mixed High school changing rooms

Privacy does not correlate with safety.

The standard response to having mixed sex areas such as toilets is to increase privacy - ‘then it’s ok’. It’s a response repeated through designs such as on the post pictured.

Floor to ceiling doors and partitions reduce safety.

If you prioritise privacy over safety by taking out the door gaps (at the top and bottom of cubicle doors) three things happen:

1. You are discriminating against people at their most vulnerable - those with medical conditions who are more likely to collapse. Such as children with heart conditions, diabetes, epilepsy, asthma. And those people who have an acute emergency such as a heart attack, aneurysm, medical reaction. This is because you can’t see the person has collapsed and it could be a long time before they are found. The government knows time is of the essence, as there’s a defibrillator in every school, yet these private designs thwart rescue in the very place people go to when they are feeling ill.
2. By creating private mixed sex spaces, the potential for the number of assaults will go rise. People don’t like being seen by witnesses so gaps prevent attacks. Already in 2015 it was noted that there was at least one reported rape inside a British school premises each school day. Schools do not need to create more private mixed sex spaces.
3. Hygiene will be compromised unless there’s lots more time and money spent on mechanical ventilation, and cleaning. Reduced air flows mean you will be more likely to catch the bugs from previous occupants. If there is vomit etc on the floor, it’s much less easy to slosh disinfectant around and mop.

This is a shorter version of what I normally post because the evidence list is very much longer. This hyperlink is a good article I have come across showing the reality and many problems with these toilets in schools.

In Spain I can only comment on local swimming pool. Changing rooms . Men. Fathers with Children. Mothers with children. Women. All have open changing areas with some cubicles. Very safe. Ideal really

Parents need to boycot and march to the Education Offices.
SNP are going to be wiped out at the next election. It doesn't seem to occur to them that this sort of stuff has destroyed them.

The girls do woodwork while the boys do PE and then the boys do woodwork when the girls do PE.....

Exactly. Even in these so-called changing villages, in leisure centres, there is still single-sex provision for school parties.

why do you say that? It’s a basic human right, surely. Why would you challenge that?

Youve taken it out of context - if a school has split changing rooms and it has been for the dawn of time - then why would anyone outside the school be interested in making them mixed and insisting this is an issue?

Who is pushing this mixed changing rooms in schools? I want the bigger picture.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6124077/Ninety-cent-sexual-assaults-public-swimming-pools-happen-unisex-changing-rooms.html

This is LITERALLY the first thing you learn in even the most introductory safeguarding training, and it’s repeated over and over again so it really sinks in:

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.

Mixed sex changing with separate cubicles - doesn't everyone know the teenage boys will be putting their phones under,over the doors? Any little chink that they can see through?
Seriously? People are arguing it's fine, it's non of our business... Good grief.

There was some report some time back of how school girls are harassed by the boys - from bra strap twanging to lewd comments, fake insta accounts etc etc.

We are just training them to be ready for grownup life.

@Scarletttulips

why do you say that? It’s a basic human right, surely. Why would you challenge that?

Because child safeguarding is everyone's concern in a civilised society.

There are sometimes mixed sex toilets in Finland now (but most of the time I've seen them its been an option alongside the single sex ones, but at least once I've been to a place with only mixed sex loos) but absolutely no mixed sex changing rooms, people would throw a fit if they tried to get rid of the single sex changing rooms at swimming pools etc.

They don't change for PE at all in my DD's primary school though, so its only swimming when they're in a changing situation and then its strictly single sex.
The upper school changing rooms connect via the showers though so I don't know how they sort that out for changing, I think there's two sets of connecting ones so hopefully the boys are in one set and the girls in another.

In my DS school a number of classes did PE at the same time. It seemed sensible timetabling as they needed enough pupils to set up various team sports. Changing rooms were single sex and all open plan. There would be no way they could fit enough cubicles for everyone to use. As people have said schools are not leisure centres or Centre Parcs which are typically set up for family use - so provide for the target customers. All of those I’ve used still have their toilets separated by sex. It’s not all leisure centre’s either, ours which is probably 5 years old has single sex changing rooms (with family rooms).

Primark porn passed you by?

Sorry if off topic but how does that work in a Co-Ed school with timetabling- what do the boys in the class do in the lesson the girls are doing PE?

Scotland - Not safe for women and girls

If that's true that's awful. All schools around here do separate sex PE lessons at different times on different days nevermind changing...

This discussion is mixing two meanings of "mixed sex changing".

Mixed sex lockers area with individual changing cubicles sounds totally fine for me, thought I understood that some in the UK see it as troublesome as well.

Mixed sex meaning one plain room without any division is bad.

Until we know which one everyone means, this discussion won't make any sense

There are always plenty of private cubicles

Errr….not in most UK schools. One room for girls, another for boys.

I'm only in my thirties but when I was in school they practically acted like we would get pregnant from being in the same room as boys ! Now it's a ridiculous free for all.

Highly dependent on the country.

I also wonder why anyone other than the school concerned would have an opinion on where teenagers get changed.

It’s a school. Not a gym

there’s no way that the changing rooms should be mixed sex

why are adults keen for this to happen ?

Do schools have changing villages? Not in my experience. Just boys changing and girls changing.

I'm surprised everyone is acting like mixed sex changing rooms are so unusual in the UK. The vast majority of new (as in built within the last 10 years) public leisure centres are all built on the 'changing village' model whereby there is just one big changing facility, made up of mainly cubicles (individual and family) which can be used by anyone. There have been 2 brand new leisure centres (1 council owned but now run by a private company , 1 privately built but a national centre of excellence) built in my city in the last decade and 2 of the older council ones have been refurbished, all to this model. Same in neighbouring cities I've visited. It's also the standard in, for example, centre parcs and bluestone. To be fair I think it's probably because it's easier for families rather than for gender reasons (although possibly makes it easier for both) but it's really not unusual.

The private gyms I go to (and I've been to a lot, due to moving around/travelling for work) tend to be single sex still but I think that's because a lot of them are quite old, and even when they've been taken over by different companies it's cheaper to retain the same building plan.

I appreciate that a poster has since pointed out that this incident refers to toilets but if it did mean a changing village scenario I wouldn't have a problem with it and would have probably preferred it to single sex changing all in an open space as a teen. Obviously a mixed sex open plan single changing area without cubicles would be inappropriate but there's no point in getting worked up about it if there's no evidence that's actually ever happened, anywhere.