Toilet doors removed - secondary school

[sparkie1972]

I've just received a letter from my daughters school, to say that they have removed the outside doors to the girls and boys toilets, to resolve the issue of students congregating in there during lesson times. The main cubical doors will remain in tact, but the move would allow staff to look check quickly if learners are standing by the sink area. I'm concerned about the privacy and dignity of the girls being eroded. Any ideas on how to approach this with the school?

It clearly isn't a non issue if it's impacting girls, who now don't drink enough water / have to double up on pads/ run the risk of UTIs in order to avoid, at any cost, using the toilet at school. That's not a non issue. It's a political issue by adults who have little care for the dignity and safeguards for girls. It's fucking grim.

I’ve yet to see someone explain how to solve the anti social behaviour, bullying, bunking off, vaping etc .. with the doors on.

Those who say they don't understand the problem, and that schools are petty over this, just do not understand the vaping epidemic that we have in our schools. It is incredibly challenging to deal with and is affecting all schools.

Anyone would think the toilets were full of this anti social behaviour all the time. However did we manage in the past for so many year with doors I wonder.🙄

In reality all of those things, if they're going to happen, and it's a minority of kids who do this, will just happen elsewhere instead. It doesn't solve those problems, it just moves them.

What is achieved here though is the girls losing their privacy and dignity on top of everything else. Removing doors doesn't solve anything. It creates problems for girls.

Bearing in mind the the school corridors generally have cameras these days anyway, it's amazing that the only way to stop these hoardes of children from this excessive anti social behaviour is to <remove the toilet doors^.

What a crock of shit.

Absolute nonsense, did we have vaping in the past ? Did we have social media in the past ?
Interesting that you don’t provide a solution just an insult

And is stopping a child vaping more important than the safety and dignity of girls?

Because there's lots of deterrents that could be put in place to deal with vaping.

Rather than putting in place a deterrent stopping girls from feeling comfortable going to the toilet in privacy.

So how do you stop gangs of older pupils intimidating younger ones ?
How do you stop the bunking off that happens ?
How do you stop the bullying that happens ?
All of these are very real issues in my school. Are you a teacher ? Do you have to deal with such issues on a daily basis ?
What is your solution , you still haven’t answered that, just deflecting and insults ?

What deterrent do you put in to stop pupils vaping in toilets ?

I'm.a teacher and believe u me staff do not want to go in toliet if they can help.it. It is a fact that pupils congregate in toilets taunting and bullying etc. If the toilets to individual cables remain their privacy is not being eroded

Insult?

Where's the insult?

Are you feeling insulted / triggered by the crock of shit comment? 🤨

That's not an insult to you. It's simply an observation about the situation. Can't you tell the difference?

There's plenty of solutions rather than lazily removing the doors off of the toilets.

Can't you think of one single one?

Nothing?

Just take the doors off? That's it?

Cubicles not cables

So the solution is ???? Please enlighten us

If the toilet doors are there how is there a problem?

because you can hear people pee, fart, have liquid shits and rustle their clothes/FHP wrappers?

If teachers are unable to open a door to see if there are kids congregating in there, i wonder if they are clever enough to teach?

Oh the soultion.

Ok.

I'll make a start. And wait for the, oh no, we can't possibly do that, people.

Or maybe those people could try and add some reasonable suggestions to it which don't include removing the doors from the girls toilets.

I'd utilise the cameras in the corridors to ensure that this huge gangs of children that are allegedly beating eachother up and vaping in the toilets are actually in their classrooms. It's surprising that these gangs of children roaming the corridors just don't get spotted. There's short time frames when children are moving around. And really not that many toilet areas in schools. In my DC's school there's 3 clusters.

I would get someone to check on the toilets periodically at busy times. And to check they are clear once the main bustle of children has dispersed to wherever they are going.

At break times, just like the old days, have people monitoring the doors to check whose coming in, how long they are spending in there, not too many people in at any one time.

Zero tolerance to vaping. Any child caught with those things gets immediately expelled. Just like the old days when students got expelled for smoking. Zero tolerance to any anti social behaviour tbh.

Anyone like to add some additional ideas to that?

Or is it going to be a case of no, we can't possibly do that...

It is a reasonable question.

You don’t think this already happens ?
Are you a teacher ? You clearly have no idea how permanent expulsions work.

Actually, this is better and safer. I'm a teacher and recently visited a school that does this. Pupils said they feel safer now as before they would be nervous about going into the toilets - not knowing who was in there, kids chucking stuff over the cubicle doors (staff couldn't see what was going on), lots of bullying happens in the toilets as they're often the one place in the school that is staff-free. This is a good solution. There are still cubicle doors of course!

Well if all those strategies are being undertaken and you still can't solve the problem /stop children, then why is that? What exactly is the barrier once all of these strategies are in place?

Btw, children from DC's school are now starting to get expelled / suspended quite regularly for anti social behaviour since a new head started a few months back. It's not perfect by any means, there's a lot to do. But it's a step in the right direction. And that fear is proving a deterrent for quite a number of children so far. Ripple in a pond.

It's a terrible solution for girls. And if they don't feel safe in school, then I would see that as an adult problem / unable to effectively discipline.

It clearly isn't a non issue if it's impacting girls, who now don't drink enough water / have to double up on pads/ run the risk of UTIs in order to avoid, at any cost, using the toilet at school. That's not a non issue. It's a political issue by adults who have little care for the dignity and safeguards for girls. It's fucking grim.

Lots of pupils are doing this because they are scared of going to the toilets in school because they are prime spots for bullying!

It's a terrible solution for girls. And if they don't feel safe in school, then I would see that as an adult problem / unable to effectively discipline.

Ha. I work in an outstanding private school with (comparatively) excellent behaviour. But bullying happens in every school, and anyone who thinks it doesn't, is either a fool or lying! Toilets are the hotspot for school bullying.

It would be helpful if a solution could be found for the social media problem in school. Either no phones in school, although I appreciate that children may need them for bus apps / safety / location for too and from school. Or put in lockers. Maybe easier, a solution such as SchoolBlock from ParentShield (there may be others) should be part of the parent / school / child contract where the phone cannot be used in school hours. (Apart from an overide to key numbers such as the parent)
Zero tolerance.

Yes it does happen in all schools I agree. Does your outstanding private school also advocate removing the toilet doors and eroding the dignity of girls? Doesn't sound outstanding to me if so, it sounds lazy. Like the adults have lost control. I wouldnt be paying for such an outstanding service that's for sure.

They're doing it because the toilets are filthy and the doors have been removed.

I would assume there’s a bullying issue and the school is trying to manage that. Losing some privacy so vulnerable students are protected is fine in my mind. Sad it’s required.