Are there enough loos in school?

[Oddmusings]

There is meant to be a ratio of 1 toilet for every 20 pupils. Do schools adhere to this? That’s a lot of queuing and some schools keep blocks shut.

Don’t know about loo provision in different schools but if pupils didn’t vandalise or behave badly (vaping, bullying etc) and used them the correct way schools wouldn’t have to shut some of them. They don’t have sufficient spare staff to police their use, and frankly they shouldn’t have to.

It feels like we are always taking about toilets. Pupils not being allowed to go to toilets in lessons, being scared to go to toilets in breaks, there not being enough toilets for everyone to go between lessons. None of this is great but all of it is because of behaviour. People can’t imagine just how bad it is if they aren’t in schools.

I don’t know what the answer is - I don’t work in a school. How schools address the statutory requirement to provide suitable facilities against the backdrop of other issues is up to them to work out, but they do need to work it out.

I remember being at school 30 years ago and there not being anywhere near enough toilets. 4 per floor (3 buildings with 3 floors each) = 36 toilets for girls (600 girls). That was one toilet to every 16 girls but we were only allowed to go at break or lunchtime. So combine that with periods etc - it was a fucking nightmare then. I’d forgotten the pure horror of spending a whole 15 min break lined up to go to the toilet to change a leaking pad. Toilets in schools - especially for girls - are Not Ok. And blanket rules should be anyone goes to the bathroom when they need it. I will be one of those parents who ensures my kids teachers know that. Stepping down off of soapbox now!!!

I have always had heavy periods so I sympathise. I remember leaking and tying my jumper round my waist. I feel sorry for kids who need to have a poo with an audience of other kids too. Brutal.

I went to a very rough school. People smoked weed and did pills in the loos. They ‘bunked off’ etc. But the school never closed them. As someone who didn’t do those things I didn’t have my access to toilets removed because a small percentage of kids messed about. I don’t get closing or restricting toilet use. It’s a basic bodily function. Access to loos is not a reward you get for good behaviour.

My mate who was the head at the last school I worked at spent ages monitoring toilet use at break and in lessons.
He said there was never a queue at lunchtime but a wait at break but not for very long. He then monitored use in lesson and on one occasion found 42 students used the loos in the first 30 minutes into the lesson after lunchtime. He decided to make it a rule that no one could go until 40 minutes into a lesson apart from medical reasons.
Also he introduced senior leadership pickup from lessons. Kids could still go but they had to ask and teachers had to request SLT attendance. SLT then remained outside toilets. It totally eliminated misbehaviour in the loos. Kids had to listen to SLT moaning about their problems on the trips to and from the loos, which was quite funny. Some surprising meeting of minds happened though.
Toilets in school are always a problem. At my own school back in the 80s no one would go on their own to the main toilets because of the bully but the other toilets were said to be haunted. Good times.

”monitoring toilet use” of children and teenagers. Fucking vom.

I never saw a queue for a toilet at my school… but then I was always allowed to go during lesson because I never misbehaved. I don’t see why some other kids messing around should prevent children who have never had an order mark or detention etc from using the toilet.

I feel for girls with IBS who aren’t allowed to go

I asked this years ago when I was working in a school. It is not just the amount of toilets that's the issue, it's the fact that in a 15m period that is break or a 30m lunch there is not enough time for everyone who wants the toilet to access the toilet.

Schools will issue toilet passes if there is someone with a medical need.

@abathofmilkwithladydi Schools have to monitor toilet use its a safeguarding thing. There have been medical emergencies in school toilets as well as bullying, drug taking and sexual assaults.
What was unusual about my mates monitoring was that he changed the rules to make it safer but still accessible.

Thos is what I mean though, about people not understanding what’s happening in schools now.

Kids aren’t just bunking off and smoking weed any more. They are kicking toilets off the walls, smearing stuff about as well as the more old skool fighting and so on. All filmed now of course. In my day, if a kid had removed all of the toilet seats and stamped on them all they would have been expelled and their mammy would have absolutely murdered them. Not any more. They are more likely to pick them up with a Macdonalds and shout at the staff instead of the child.

No teacher wants to close toilets and monitor them.

I retired from teaching a few years ago.

toilet passes were available to any child who could get their parent to email in to the deputy head explaining medical or other reasons. We had a lot of them but actually those kids rarely used them.

i’m not sure if we had one toilet per twenty kids - we had 1800 kids which is 5 by 18 about a hundred toilets. I don’t think we had that many.

the problem in later years wasn’t so much the smoking and truanting it was the sexual assault (one girl was assaulted in the loos during lesson time) and the teen boys would put paper towels down the loos and flood the toilets making them completely unusable.

either that or take the doors off their hinges so no privacy.

the vandalism and bad behaviour has really gone up a level since I was at school.

Yeah. I think there is a lot of rose tinted spectacles. Those kinds of things absolutely did happen in my school growing up. I don’t recall many people being expelled when they (routinely) happened. But ‘those kids’ parents definitely would not have cared if they were!

What is the difference between schools that are able to manage the risk of vandalism as well as their statutory duties?

Oddmusings investment of time constant awareness, vigilance and decisive and tough leadership in my experience.
Also toilets are just a symptom of the whole school ethos. If the students are happy and mostly well behaved toilets are mostly not an issue.

Some toilets are easier to monitor - eg one of the sixth forms near me has the sinks open to the corridor and cubicles off the sinks (the whole thing is at a right angle to the corridor) so anyone hanging around in there is seen by people passing in the corridor

some schools deliberately put offices for admin/senior staff near loos so that there’s usually an adult around to keep a check on who goes in and who doesn’t

my school had cctv on corridors but not in the loos so you could see who had gone in and cut the suspects for vandalism down to a few.

they got the school council to raise money for nicer loos and then the council did assemblies telling people not to fuck it up

one set of loos did get vandalised so badly they were shut for a term because school didn’t have the money to renovate them (toilets pulled off floor etc)