Secondary school girls' toilets

[ThereIsAGreenBinFaraway]

NC because I've talked about this in real life.

Our catchment school is a venue for various community activities and the girls' toilets have always been terrible (10 years+ I've been going). Doors don't lock, no seats on the toilets. Just the absolute basics.

This weekend I went for an event and now I find the actual door to the toilets has been removed. So the sinks etc are open to the corridor, although the cubicles have doors. Except mine didn't lock and had no seat.

I spoke to someone who seemed to think this was normal to keep the girls safe. Apparently it's more of a safeguarding risk to have a door on it than not to.

What on earth is happening in girls' toilets at secondary school that they aren't allowed to have a door on the toilets room? This is a genuine question because I am horrified at the thought girls no longer have privacy whilst going to the toilet.

Perhaps it's not the most exciting thread title!

The cubicals have doors so I personally don’t see what the problem is. When I was in school (I left less than 10 years ago), the amount of girls that used to get beaten up, take drugs/smoke and bunk off of lessons whilst in the toilet was ridiculous.

Maybe if there wasn’t a door, these things would have happened less at teachers would be able to walk past and see what’s going on

Oops posted too quickly. I was just going to ask, by removing the front door, what privacy do you think has now been taken from them? I may genuinely not be considering all aspects here!

Vaping
Taking photos
Cubical doors should lock, and no seats is grim

Cubicle

What was happening in our secondary:

Bullying
Vaping
Truancy - kids sitting in the toilet area rather than going to lessons
Kids putting paper towels down the loos and blocking the plumbing system flooding the toilets

They'll have taken the door off so that either the cctv can see the main area or the vandalism etc is less likely to occur due to teachers etc walking by seeing them doing it.

If the cubicle doors are floor to ceiling, I think that's fine. If they're not, I wouldn't be happy with it.

Thanks🤣 I knew it looked wrong but couldn’t figure out why!

Ha no, I did it the same as you too first!

I would have much preferred that when I was at school. Toilets were terrifying places where the mean girls hung out to smoke and have a go at anyone who dared enter. I used to hang on all day rather than go into the girls loos.
I have 2 teenager girls now and they tell me it’s much the same now, except they vape rather than smoke.
Having easy visibility is much better in my mind - it’s harder for the mean girls to all hang around in there.

YANBU when we went back into the office after Covid we had to leave the door from the corridor into the toilets (made unisex for the time) wedged open so one caught Covid from touching the door handle 🙄 even with solid walls and doors those cubicles were still echoey and nothing like soundproof and as someone who suffers from IBS and heavy periods (used to keep sanitary products in the communal part of the toilets that then became open to the corridor) it felt much less private and uncomfortable. It’s pretty disgusting that kids can’t be trusted to use toilets in school, it can’t bode well for how they then behave in public!

It reduces bullying, students clustering and causing damage, intimidation of younger students. Cubicles should be well maintained though.

I get people find it odd, but my school in the early 90s had one set of toilets that didn't have a door either - just a room with an entrance off the corridor with cubicles not facing the entrance.