Schools re-opening post-Covid and gender-neutral toilets

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Wonder if others are finding the same thing? My ds started back at school yesterday, and because of the year 'bubbles' at secondary, each year is confined to its own bit of the school and only allowed to use the toilets in that part. He is in Year 10, which has around 200 kids in the year, and the only toilets allocated to their year, unbelievably, are the boys' toilets on one floor. So these have now become de facto mixed-sex toilets for all 200 children.

There are two cubicles only. There was a urinal, as it was previously the boys' toilets, which is closed off, with a sign up not to use it. The cubicles have floor to ceiling doors, and there is one trough as a sink outside the two cubicles. The outside door onto the corridor has been taken off its hinges so that, in theory, the sink area is sort of visible to those passing.

This seems bizarre and I think illegal? 2 toilets for 200 children, who are only allowed to use the toilet in the quite short breaks, does not seem sufficient. In addition, I thought that over the age of 8, boys and girls were required by law to have separate toilets?

The school may not have had any choice on this, as it may be that government guidelines specified they needed to divide the school up like this - can anyone else confirm?

Or it may be that the school are doing this deliberately, and using the Covid changes to sneak this change past the parents and pupils? The school has been Stonewalled previously, and converted one toilet block to gender neutral last year (previously a boys' toilet). This met with massive opposition from parents and from pupils, who hated using the mixed loos, and so the school rowed back from plans to convert all the toilets to mixed-sex.

I'm wondering how much this school, and other schools, are using Covid restrictions as an excuse to introduce mixed-sex toilets throughout the school? Then once the pandemic is out of the way, mixed-sex toilets will have been normalised, and there will be no way to return to the former single-sex norm.

Am I being paranoid? And is there anything I can do about it? My ds hates using the toilets now, as aside from the long queues, groups of girls stand around doing their hair/make-up in front of the mirrors throughout the breaks, and he really doesn't feel comfortable going for a wee/poo with them watching him go in/listening outside! I imagine plenty of girls feel equally uncomfortable with the arrangement - I would certainly have hated it as a teen.

Even from a Covid point of view, surely forcing 200 kids to share 200 toilets is not going to give them enough space to wash their hands etc. If any child gets coronavirus, one imagines it will spread very quickly and easily with this kind of cramped toilet and hand-washing facilities.

Thoughts?

[quote LateSummerGarden]@2fallsagain

Do you know what response she received to that letter or what the outcome was?[/quote]
Not from the parent who wrote it but others who have used it either have meetings set up or school reversed decision pretty quickly.

Good to hear.

I'd need to change it a bit as in my case I have a ds at the school, but will be arguing that mixed-sex toilets are harmful for both sexes, as well as illegal.

Cross reading the letter, as the school did not even tell parents the change had been made, much less consult them on it. They knew the parents would oppose it strongly, given the fuss made when the school converted one toilet block previously. So just went ahead and did it and kept quiet on the subject.

Not from the parent who wrote it but others who have used it either have meetings set up or school reversed decision pretty quickly.

That's a positive response then!

@DidoLamenting

He is in Year 10

How old is that? Will posters never realise not everyone is familiar with the English school system. "He is [insert age]" is shorter to type as well.

If the cubicles are fully enclosed floor to ceiling then that is legally ok for boys and girls to use. Not knowing what "year 10" is I don't know if the cubicles need to have sanitary bins.

Having said all that 2 toilets per 200 pupils doesn't seem nearly enough.

for fucks sake I hate this repeated moaning on MN. I've never been to school in scotland but having seen the P1/S2 referenced here I've managed to work out what that means. I've never been to school in america but just from watching tv I understand what kindergarten/middle school/sophomores and freshman are and their ages. It's not hard!

Fucking google it if it's so confusing to you - it will take 20 seconds i.e. less than the time it took to type out your post complaining about it.
I mean anyone with a brain who knows how numbers work will probably realise that a school system wouldn't start with year six so your point about 'I don't know if they would need sanitary bins' is pointless. Whether a school year starts at age three or age five, or whether it uses terms like reception or kindergarten or starts the numbering system straight at year one, or even if you actually thought year = age, Year 10 is going to be at least ten/11 years old so yes would need sanitary provision.

OP I wouldn't have been happy with this as a child. If you are highlighting it with the school can you ask what is happening with the teachers' toilets? Are theirs expected to be mixed (doubt they would be happy with that!) Similarly are they assigned only one toilet in the whole school or are they all using different ones in which case they could then pass whatever on to the year groups they are teaching!

There was a similar post, maybe it can help
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3982773-Has-anyone-objected-to-gender-neutral-toilets-and-got-them-changed

I can't say whether this particular school is using this as a way to introduce mixed sex toilets but I think there being enough toilets throughout the school is a red herring.

The schools I know of have zoned the buildings to enable separation of bubbles. One school has allocated, for example, year 7 the science block for all lessons and toilets, year 8 has another distinct area with a toilet block, year 9 another. So one year group might have use of 10 cubicles but another year only 6 cubicles but that's because it's been done in order to separate bubbles.

Teachers on MN have been warning about the practicalities of this throughout summer. Government need to allocate money to schools so that they can buy in extra facilities.

@DidoLamenting

He is in Year 10

How old is that? Will posters never realise not everyone is familiar with the English school system. "He is [insert age]" is shorter to type as well.

If the cubicles are fully enclosed floor to ceiling then that is legally ok for boys and girls to use. Not knowing what "year 10" is I don't know if the cubicles need to have sanitary bins.

Having said all that 2 toilets per 200 pupils doesn't seem nearly enough.

If someone's not familiar with the English school system then they're probably not familiar with the law governing them either. You replied to the OP in what could be construed as a very rude manner, there really was no need

[quote EyesOpening]There was a similar post, maybe it can help
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3982773-Has-anyone-objected-to-gender-neutral-toilets-and-got-them-changed[/quote]
Thank you!

really? Your google must be different from mine because when I googled ''what age is someone in year ten uk" the first entry was a handy little chart with all the ages and years. No 'going into websites' needed, took approx 5 secs.

Also it is useful and relevant here because OP is talking about toilet access being segregated by year group, not age. So saying 'all of year ten have to use this one particular toilet' is correct, whereas if she said her son is fourteen you would assume that all fourteen year olds had to use that one toilet, which is wrong - the fourteen year olds in Year nine would have to use a different toilet, whereas the fifteen year olds in her son's year would be using the same toilet as him.

Finally, you refer to 'tenth year of schooling' but not being sure what age they start school (although you then say you know children start school at age 4-5 in the UK, so you do know...) but does the exact age actually even matter in this particular scenario? If the child is 4 plus ten as in the UK or 6 plus ten as per Germany, as you mentioned, would your answer change? Is 2 toilets for 200 kids okay if they are fourteen but not if they were sixteen? If it's not relevant, why ask???

If you go on a UK based site then you should expect posters to occasionally use UK specific (I know in this case it's actually only E&W specific) terminology. I wouldn't go onto Maman-net and start complaining that I didn't understand what age Le lycée covered, I'd suck it up and either google it if I cared that much or just close the thread, assuming the OP would somehow manage to struggle on without the benefit of my awesome wisdom, if I didn't.

Sorry to derail further, OP! Just a particular bugbear of mine!

@thevassal you are absolutely right and I apologise for the silly derail.
I will add, however, that I used duckduckgo to google and none of the snippets said anything more than "tenth year of schooling"!

Oh god ruffle

They are literally being blackmailed with their health and periods aren't they

Course when they have no choice but to use them or soil themselves the set up will be deemed a roaring success

Can we stop feeding the thread derailment please? I am British but write for an American audience. You just subtract one from the Year system to figure out the equivalent grade. Not rocket science. Can we get back to the important topic at hand now?

Sorry x-post. I agree @whatwouldscullydo

So I guess you are emailing to clarify this morning and muttering something about impact assessments and protected characteristics?

Covid is no excuse and don't let it be one you can garuntee the staff won't be sharing their toilets