Ireland will no longer be providing single sex toilets in primary and secondary schools!!!

[XXSex]

I am LIVID!!! New technical guidance has been released.
www.education.ie/en/School-Design/Technical-Guidance-Documents/Current-Technical-Guidance/sdg-02-06-sanitary-facilities-april-2021-.pdf

All mixed sex. Hand basin outside the WC (WAH your bloody hands in front of boys). Doors down to the floor (any one else see an issue in a mixed sex school with mixed sex toilets with this set up)

What the were the department thinking?!!!

A high school in a city nearish me was built with mixed sex toilets. Roll on three years and the toilets have all been changed to single sex.

@Tibtom

A high school in a city nearish me was built with mixed sex toilets. Roll on three years and the toilets have all been changed to single sex.

Can you give the school name please? If you’re not comfortable on the forum could you please DM me. I need evidence in order to challenge this.

I work in a school with loos a lot like this except they have floor to ceiling doors with sinks in the cubicle - but the loos are open to the corridor and boys on one side, girls on the other.....

I took a design lesson once and the brief was to redesign one aspect of the school. Every single child chose the loos - making them single sex again.

They all said because they have no privacy....

And also, one day I had to use the student loo at break time because all the staff loos were occupied. I took in my sanitary towel, as soon as I ripped it open there was an unholy racket as a load of boys banged on my cubicle door and rattled it on the hinges.

They didn't expect me to emerge and ran off round the corner. A group of girls waiting told me that they listen at the doors for the rip of sanitary packaging and then bang on the doors. It's humiliating.

I always let kids go to the loo during lessons now, even though it's against skool policy....

Why is this stuff never effectively dealt with though.

I mean perhaps if we didn't simply just remove the topic of or the opportunity to bully and actually dealt with the behaviour we might be better off.

I'm yet to hear how it actually reduces bullying.

If its the open plan part that does it then you can.have more open.plan single sex toilets.

Or is it because girls don't speak out against their assailants so they just absorb it all and then everyone can pat themselves on the back for solving the problem.

Or is it cos none if the.kids will actually use it because the girls are at home on their periods or at the drs with a UTI amd the boys are just using the bushes.

What's it all about. Really.

rabbit I have the exact same story about boys banging on the door - except I was in the disabled loo straight out onto the corridor. Must be a nationwide ‘thing’.

@Zandathepanda

rabbit I have the exact same story about boys banging on the door - except I was in the disabled loo straight out onto the corridor. Must be a nationwide ‘thing’.

I think it is! But you know what - no-one is interested. It really is a shrug and an 'oh well. Nothing we can do.'

I don't care for myself. But these poor girls, dealing with periods for the first time, are mortified. It's the first lesson in just putting up with bad behaviour, not speaking up because nothing is going to change anyway....

A local primary school (mixed, built 1960s) has rooms of girls and boys toilets with 2 classes using each room (so JI and SI girls use one room, JI and SI boys use another and so on). Due to Covid and the need for class bubbles each class now uses one room of toilets (eg JI boys and girls use one room). The children can only go one at a time so there are never boys and girls there at the same time. BUT the girls toilets are now disgusting and there have been issues with toilet rolls being put down toilets which has happened before with boys toilets but not the girls. There is usage avoidance going on amongst the girls.

My dd is just going into secondary. I won't tell her about this policy move because of the stress and distress it would cause her.

I am angry and upset and need to take a few breaths before working out who to write to and what to say.

Bring back single sex schools is maybe a good alternative now, at least for the girls.

We still have mostly single sex schools around here and I was opposed to them until gender ideology and the absolutely hypersexualised culture we have these days became the norm. Now I am so relieved for my daughters to have them. There are a number of trans boys in my daughters’ school and I think being in an all girls school will offer them real breathing space and loads of positive female role models while they make very significant choices for their future.

@rabbitwoman "I think it is! But you know what - no-one is interested. It really is a shrug and an 'oh well. Nothing we can do.'"

I think you're wrong there, this is also for the provision of staff toilets, so if all new staff toilets are now mixed sex, you've suddenly got a very poweful lobby irritated and while theres an awful lot of single sex schools here, I've never heard of a single sex staff in any school.

I agree with you though, no ones going to just care about the discomfort of students.

I also think that there will be a push back in single sex schools against this because its ridiculous even more so in that environment. Like I said earlier in the thread, there is a new all boys secondary being designed near me, can you imagine how ridiculous it would be to have to only have cubicles rather than cubicles and urinals as well?

I would expect there will be push back from those quarters and also an all boys school now having to provide sanitary bins in every toilet (I could see the point in an accessible toilet) and have to pay for them to be specially emptied once a week etc from every cubicle, you're talking tens of thousands a year

@miri1985 But the teachers unions are captured. Not all teachers are in the union but I don’t believe that the teachers will move on this.

@Womansisterdaughtermother great to hear it! The set up on the primary school though is that there are two cubicles but neither are designated.

In my daughters school they are defaulted to male and female but not marked as such. The children make them their own.

It caused much laughter and consternation when the sanitary disposal was returned to the left hand cubicle instead of the right hand side.

WRT bullying in toilets, I can understand that they can somehow measure if the new toilet design has reduced the bullying (in toilets) but how are they going to measure if it’s created any new problems such as students not drinking/using the facilities/causing urinary infection and also whether students not using the facilities could be the reason the bullying (in the toilets) has dropped and also that it could just be taking place elsewhere? Are they anonymously surveying the students? Do they have something to measure the footfall in the toilets? Do they have measurements of footfall in the previous toilet layout to compare it with?

Sadly EyesOpening, children are never consulted about these changes. Just as women are never asked if they wish to share facilities with males. The only people who get a say are some influential men and the unrepresentative lobby groups. The impact on children and the welfare of girls having these changes inflicted on them is of no interest to these people.

@Womansisterdaughtermother - I think I might have taken you up wrong. Are you agreeing that they are captured? Can you share please?

Yes the union has been captured @XXSex...

I didn't mean consulting, I meant anonymously surveying them after they've been in for a while to see how the new layout is faring. I'm not saying that The impact on children and the welfare of girls having these changes inflicted on them is of no interest to these people, is not so but that, for example, a school I was looking (on the internet) at said that they they wanted to trial these new style toilets to reduce bullying. Maybe it's not because they care but rather it's because something negative is happening so they needed to do something about it, to make them look better, but if they gain other problems, or the bullying has just moved somewhere else within the school, they'll still look bad, so surely they'll still need to study the effects?

@Womansisterdaughtermother I initially thought that you’d stated the opposite but then I reread your post. I’m so annoyed with the whole institutional capture.

What was at the conference? If you can share?

Following. I live in Ireland and this has appalled me. I have a little girl, she's a way off school age yet so I really hope sanity has been restored by the time she starts.I really can't engage in public advocacy on this issue either, because of my job

We have some gender neutral toilets at the end of our school canteen. No girls ever use them. No matter how often they are cleaned they are vile. Piss on the toilet seats and often floor. The idea that these types of toilets are the only ones available is horrendous. Teen girls may be able to cope with hovering or something. Primary school girls would struggle greatly.

@Notoriouslynotnotious - if you don’t mind, I’d like to know what happens in a single-sex school when a pupil identifies as trans. I have experience of (religious) single sex schools from many years ago only, and cannot fathom how the presence of trans children would be incorporated in such an environment....

@Notoriouslynotnotious

We still have mostly single sex schools around here and I was opposed to them until gender ideology and the absolutely hypersexualised culture we have these days became the norm. Now I am so relieved for my daughters to have them. There are a number of trans boys in my daughters’ school and I think being in an all girls school will offer them real breathing space and loads of positive female role models while they make very significant choices for their future.

Ditto here- far fewer mixed-sex options for schools, so all my DC go to single sex ones.

Their schools are nominally Catholic ethos (under the patronage of the Bishop etc). In practice, very liberal in views, accommodating to the many Muslim children who have space for prayer, additional teaching for children who arrive with little English etc.

My DD's tell me that there are several girls in their classes who identify as trans. It isn't even a mentionable issue- fine, get on with it. Not special, not excluded, just "ok, so". Just like the gay girls. (The gay boys still get a lot of negative stuff, though).

If one of my children was trans, I would be happy for them to be in that environment....where it's not a big deal, everyone is treated with respect, and no-one's rights supersede another.

From what I see (visit many schools in work capacity), primary schools are heavily into LGBTQI+.
Think notice boards throughout the school covered in LGBTQI+ posters.

Interesting to see in the last year, when one might think that the many children with SEN would be recognised on notice boards.
Or, Covid signage, or physical/mental health issues.
Nope.
Trans front & centre.
At Primary school.

Bloody hell. Were no women consulted either? I was a reasonably confident child, but changing sanpro even with other girls in the next cubicle was embarrassing. No way would I have done it in a mixed toilet, especially when you know boys are specifically listening.