To expect the loos at my ds's secondary school to be cleaned and usable?

[Noellefielding]

ds says that they were so bad that they were decorated not long ago but within two days they were disgusting again.

He says they are covered in rubbish, urine, the loos are blocked, the locks are broken.

He will only pee in them if he has no choice. He says they were done up last year...

Is this usual? It's an all boys' school, very tough in discipline but they are unsupervised in the loos, I wonder if that's why they let off steam there to such a horrible extent.

So is this common?
Why don't the school address it?
Are there ways that it could be addressed?

Sorry, why 'doesn't' the school address it?

That's nasty. I remember part of why I develope great anxiety (apart from the bullying in general) in first year of secondary school was the horse play in the toilets and the disgusting state they were in. Not joking when I say that boa cruelly trained myself not to use the toilet AT ALL in school hours. Looking back that's all kinds of wrong. Can't belive it still goes on like that

'Boa cruelly' hmm I meant 'actually'

YANBU at all.

DS says the toilets in his secondary school are disgusting too, and he'll only use them if he has to.

School loos are cleaned daily usually at end of day. Accidents cleaned up by caretaker. School loos are ime dreadful and I know of no child who willingly uses them. My own dd has never used a school loo to my knowledge not even when tiny. At the school I taught at boys regularly did unspeakable things and whole year groups would receive detentions until perp owned up. Gross . Teachers loos slightly better thank god

DS developed a bit of a phobia about the toilets in secondary school and used to sneak out to use a supermarket facility if he really had to go. No soap, no hot water, no toilet paper, doors off the cubicles.

At DD's school, DD will use the toilets in one building, but those in the main building are extremely poor with doors not lockable and generally an unsanitary place.

I'm planning to raise this with the school. As chair of the PTA, I might get heard, and it'll benefit more than just DD.

I used to have to supply bottles of hand sanitizer for my dc a secondary school as they never had running waters and they where so dirty kids used to run through the door to use the loo as they would rather wait till they got home than use the school loos, ds would actually not drink all day to make sure he didn't have to use them and complaining made no difference :(

Within hours of the girls loos being totally refurbed a kid had jumped on a closed seat and broken it. It was decided that soap would not be used as it would be smeared all over the walls. Sinks clogged up with tissue and sandwiches and sometimes faeces. We used to supervise toilets all over lunch; sometimes they would have to be locked and kids would have to ask to use them. Kids behave in the most disgusting way in school loos, I don't have an answer at all but I wouldn't want to use them myself, they are usually gross.
One school I knew had totally open entrances and the loos were, I think unisex. They claimed that this reduced bullying but I used to think of the poor kids who needed to make themselves comfortable during period time, or needed to do a number two - at secondary especially you want a bit off privacy.

I used to work in the facilities department of a large ship yard, and the toilets in the yard were worse than this, and they were being used by grown men, at their work where they were being paid a decent wage! Toilets would be smashed, piss and shit on the floor and walls, graffiti, paper towel holders ripped off the wall............ We would get them fixed, but the same thing would keep happening. I think in the end the company ended up spending £18k a year for a toilet attendant. The mind boggles!

Is there any solution anywhere to this kind of vileness?
Open doors is cruel of course but I wonder if there is any kind of inducement which would work against this.
My feeling at ds's school is that it is such a strict place with hysterical detentions given for the slightest infraction that the boys go Lord of the Flies in the few feet of unsupervised space. Obvs illegal to put cameras in the bogs my dh said, quite right, but how does any secondary school get past any Ofsted? I mean do the cleaners come in on the day?

Why isn't there more uproar about it?

Is it because we all know deep down that there is no solution?
It is fairly bestial of us to have no solution isn't it?
I am baffled.
Isn't there always a way?
What are school bogs like in Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.
I bet they have bloody chamber orchestras playing all the time and perfumiers borrowing the space for product development, science classes could overspill out of labs into bogs if necessary and the sick bay could probably overspill too!
(sobbing with envy emoticon)
Does anyone know what those Nordic bogs are like! Break it to me! They smell of crushed pine needles don't they?

A school near me did put CCTV in the loos (positioned so that inside of cubicles and boys' bits could not be seen). I don't know whether it made a difference but if it made them safer and more comfortable then great IMO.

My dh is a school cleaner in a High School and he says the toilets are like this, absolutely disgusting. And it's the pupils themselves who make them so filthy.
They do the most unspeakable things with loo paper, faeces, urine and sanitary protection, up the walls, on the floor and even stuck to the ceiling. The Head is always trying to stop it getting like this, but if the pupils themselves are behaving like pigs (an insult to pigs actually!) what can be done? If you station a very reluctant Staff member in there during breaks to keep an eye on things, they'll be labelled a pervert! Very tricky.

I could barely walk past the boys' loos without gagging. I was called in once to look at a mess that had been made-I was heaving.

Btw the staff loos were barely any better. Reasonably clean but loo seats didn't fit, loos didn't flush properly, freezing cold and the soap was so disgusting that I would rather get my mate to wee on my hands to rinse them than use it.

I can still remember the smell of the toilets at my secondary school 20+ years ago. It was a combination of filth and cigarette smoke. Incredibly intimidating places as well. I also never used them. How I managed to go all day without a wee or changing a sanitary towel I'll never know.

My old school had loos like this. I remember being so confused because me and my friends were pretty straight laced, used toilets appropriately, flushed them occasional biro grafity

I remember complaining to the cleaners nearby that there was no loo roll, and there was never any loo roll. She replied that they put in a huge new roll every morning and they were always gone by first break. Even then I thought "WHY? What the fuck is everyone doing to all the loo roll?"

Still don't know.

We used to steal the toilet paper, as it was that Isal type (hard and shiny stuff in single sheets, slid off your bottom) and good for paper-and-comb instruments. Also good for tracing paper.

The only danish school I have spent time in had no "communal" Loo's. Each classroom had a loo with sink in a lobby opening off the classroom. I can't remember if it was a primary or secondary, the level of sports facilities makes me think secondary.

Secondary school Loos in the UK are not ALL ghastly. At my secondary there were lots of sets of two Loo's dotted about. They seemed to stay OK, maybe because there was no room to hang out.

The loos at my DC school are very clean and tidy any time I've used them. Hot water and soap readily available and hand dryers in working order.
The girls anyway This is a secondary school and I've used them at various times during the day when picking up DD for orthodontist appointments.
Can't comment on the cleanliness of the boys loos.

My son used to avoid the loo at secondary school. Poor bugger used to wait all day until he got home for a wee.

My secondary school loos were filthy and only used for for smoking, making small fires and sellong weed. Sad that they are all still like that.

DS hasnt started school in Denmark yet, but I will let you know in 3 years. I feel the chamber orchestra is unlikely given that the music education is so shite different here.

Our secondary school has just spent a lot of money doing up the loos as per the student's suggestions and they are really fab. At first I thought it was a bit bizarre as they are essentially open plan, from the corridor you can see straight into the handwashing/water fountain area as there are glass panels either side of the doorway and no door. The cubicles are completely enclosed though so privacy is not an issue. The girls have a few slightly larger cubicles with small sinks inside. It works extremely well. Incidents have dropped off dramatically, they are still pristine conditions at the end of the day and students are very happy with them.

The nicest that I have seen are for both sexes, all stall, open plan and can be seen from the corridor as there is no wall over the wash basins.