School toilets redesign - help please

[Catabogus]

I know that there are some very well-informed people here about safety of toilet designs as well as the importance of single-sex loos, so I’d love some advice on how to respond to this consultation from my DCs’ secondary school please.

The school has proposed the following:

a) Sixth form boys’ toilets and Block A’s girls’ toilets all to be replaced with new gender-neutral toilets with a wash basin in each cubicle;

b) Boys’ and girls’ toilets outside the canteen to stay single-sex but be replaced with open-plan toilet areas, improving security, access and efficiency.

c) All cubicles to be fitted with floor-to-ceiling partitions and doors, with guards fitted to doors to ensure privacy;

d) All cubicles in the female only toilets to have wash basins installed in each cubicle;

e) Enhanced CCTV monitoring of communal areas.

I am concerned about replacing single-sex loos with unisex ones in point (a) but also about the fitting of full length doors in (c) as I gather this can have safety implications too. If anyone could point me in the right direction of some material to quote in my response, I would be very grateful!

Also if there’s anything else I’ve missed that might be an issue - eg I’m not quite sure what are “open plan toilet areas” in point (b) and whether these might be problematic (I also don’t really understand how these fit with floor-to-ceiling cubicles containing wash basins).

Thank you very much indeed!

Unfortunately, it's tricky to pull a cord if you're unconscious.

No they don’t, possibly because of the cost, testing and false alarms ‘oops miss, just pulled it accidently’. But they are not that useful because people having strokes, seizures or hypos etc do not have the capacity to pull them.
Of the assaults in disabled toilets I have reports of, I have not come across an example where a woman or child has pulled them to sound the alarm. Possibly too afraid to?

My post was a bit unclear to be fair. I will clarify.

My primary concern with fully enclosed toilets is that if someone were to fall, faint or become very ill, and no one would know. In single sex toilets with cubicles, you could see someone on the floor.

I’ve been in toilets that have pull cords in case emergency. And always thought it was a good idea.

Fainting is one example I used. Obviously, a person couldn’t pull a cord if they were unconscious (that would be a trick, wouldn’t it?). However, a person who is feeling faint, may be able to, if it were close enough.

Last year, I fainted in my home. I got up, felt the roaring in my ears, saw stars, and managed to make it to a chair before I passed out.

As it stands the DfE now design secondary school toilet for privacy. That’s the reason the DfE gave me for the small door gaps - you can actually count it in the toilet section: safe/safety 0 ; private/privacy 4.

The gaps below the toilet doors are going. There won’t be that chance to see a child collapsed on the floor, or to see how many are in the cubicle. If a secondary school follows the DfE standard guidelines, the default is now only a 5mm gap on single sex toilets too UNLESS the school states otherwise. It is dangerous.

The latest set of guidelines also state there should be an extra ‘gender neutral’ toilet on every floor (fully private of course). It’s the first time ‘gender neutral’ has been used. They still have phrase unisex for the accessible toilet by the entrance. It’s mixed up terminology.

edit to emphasise: Schools are still perfectly able to have the gaps in toilet doors and partitions at the top and bottom. It’s just not the DfE standard design now.

I am probably biased because I once helped break down the door of a unisex no gap toilet in which a teenager had hung themselves via the emergency cord pull. Thank god they survived, after CPR and an intensive care admission.

How horrendous for everyone - I hope the child got the help they needed. It’s why you have to be careful with coat hook design in cubicles too. There have been several school tragedies in toilets.

When you start to look into it there’s so much that goes on in toilets apart from the obvious. I wish the government, especially those involved in VAWG, would concentrate on safety in design. It’s such an obvious thing to sort out for safeguarding. Prevention is always best.

It’s also why we need more women, especially those with life experience, as integral to school design.

OP, what does your DD think about it? Any impact is on her, not you.

Aye, I would imagine cost comes into it. False alarms would be a nuisance, though seems a small cost to safeguard children.

Interesting that they were not used in assaults. I’d guess they didn’t have an opportunity - maybe attacker in between victim and cord or restraining them. Or simply panicking.

I hope they’ve recovered. What an awful thing to happen.

Hmmm. I wonder if an emphasis on privacy over safety may be due to smartphone misuse. I have nieces and nephews and have heard some awful stories of pupils taking pictures/videos of others in toilets/changing rooms.

That is minor children producing indecent images of other minor children.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/indecent-and-prohibited-images-children

Along with filming other criminal activity

I know. I believe it was dealt with.

Afterwards the police talked to children during assembly to make them aware.

Just suggesting the schools may be attempting to reduce chances of similar incidents happening by increasing privacy.

@Keeptoiletssafe

i work with deaf children does any of your medical information include the deaf as we frequently get forgotten. As they design new schools with terrible acoustics when children need to listen.

If our children were on a toilet with a floor to ceiling door if there is no flashing alarm in each cubicle then there’s a risk of not hearing the alarm and to do this for every cubicle would put the cost up. Increasing the sound level of the alarm in a closed time space would not be an option.

Likewise if they were to be ill with the door locked asking them if they were ok though the door would not be an option and you can’t see if they were collapsed on the floor.

apologies if you have this covered already.

Yes they actually mentioned that specifically. This is also what WRN have highlighted in their posters and what the Conservatives have in Scotland (the logo is a boy peeking over the cubicle). It always seems to characterised as being boys doing this to girls.

When anyone complains about single sex toilets I have noticed the go-to solution is just make them private then all the problems go. But the problems just get worse.

What the government should do if they change the design for complete privacy as standard is to do an equality impact assessment. Closing the gaps affects all children at their most vulnerable, but girls (because of greater risk of sexual assaults) and the those with medical conditions (epilepsy, diabetes, heart conditions) most. Is safety or complete privacy more important for Keeping Children Safe?

Thinking about the cost benefit analysis I would say the cost is too much for the benefit. You should have a rule that boys do not go into girls toilets under any circumstances. And the legal consequences of taking a photo drilled into pupils.

For all the other reasons I go into too like hygiene and building evacuations etc, it doesn’t add up. Schools are finding this out to their cost.

I have not looked at this in depth but it’s a good point.

It the schools I used to teach out there was one flashing alarm on the ceiling that everyone would have been able to see from their cubicles.

For new and refurbished schools the DfE state: ‘Pupils with hearing difficulties shall be alerted to the schools’ alarm system whilst using the cubicles, as required by AD M’.

So presumably each cubicle needs an alarm now, especially as these enclosed cubicle systems are advertised as offering good ‘acoustic properties’.

We work in sound proof booths and the Audible alarm is too loud so in such an enclosed space I would imagine there needs to be a flashing light.

I work in a health centre where the cubicles are floor to ceiling doors and I can’t recall they have lights but I will now check.

This thread has really got me thinking thank you and @Catabogus

We have communal toilets open to a public area. They are just set back off the corridor. One side for boys, the other for girls. Sanitary bins in all the girls, free period stuff in a see through toiletry bag hanging on the door. Enhanced cctv monitoring means that if two students go into a cubicle or something is left vandalised or someone is in there for too long then it’s checked out.

I do appreciate there is a safety element to full length doors but on a day to day basis it seems to work. I actually use these loos on a regular basis as at school for after school activities and are always clean and properly stocked. There’s aren’t issues that other people seem to post about they are open between lessons, people don’t ask to go so they can socialise, no vandalism. Going to the loo was a challenge when I was back in highschool as there was a cool gitl infestation. I’d of much preferred cubicles off corridors.

Ah, that’s what I was afraid of.

On the face of it, it could be viewed as a protective measure for girls, but can result in more problems, as you say. It could also be seen as more “inclusive”.

I’m in agreement with you. Boys have no business in girls’ spaces.

I despair a little at all this. Instead of dealing properly with bad (and potentially criminal) behaviour of some, they make expensive and potentially dangerous changes to infrastructure.

It feels like a continuation of the expectation that women and girls should have to change their behaviour, rather than deal with the poor behaviour of men and boys.

I wonder if the equality impact assessment had been done, and to what level. May just have a look online, and failing that, send a wee FOI.

I have got an FOI in to the DfE. I will let you know the outcome!

The DfE email replies say that schools should be supervising pupils and know their cohort and plan accordingly. That was in response to me asking how schools are supposed to predict when children are having medical episodes.

This requires more supervision, assistance and staff knowledge of all pupils’ conditions than at any secondary school I have ever known.

It works until it doesn’t. There’s a lot of conditionals and luck.

No one considers people at their most vulnerable. To be fair the previous government had a go but they commissioned a private company to report back on public toilet design for people with long term health conditions and disabilities. The company ok’ed full height doors in design for this group but their evidence was an article that actually stated, ‘A better solution, supported by many transactivists, and increasingly found in trendy nightclubs and restaurants, is to eliminate gender-segregated facilities entirely and treat the public restroom as one single open space with fully enclosed stalls.’
What a waste to disregard what people with diabetes, epilepsy, asthma, cardiac conditions need (none of these long term conditions were discussed). That company went on to get a Stonewall Gold Award.

With respect, the cctv will be retrospective.
No one is constantly watching to work out how long people have been in each cubicle during the day and at after school clubs.
In a typical school of over 1000 pupils that’s a lot of extra vigilance at busy times.

Until something goes wrong, you are blissfully unaware of the dangers. That’s why I am trying to raise awareness.

I worked in a school with single-sex open plan toilets. A nightmare if you had a period bleed through. (The sinks were open to the corridor.)

The open plan design is supposed to stop bullying and vandalism, but it doesn't really. In addition, in the school where I worked (Scotland) the staff were required to share toilets with the pupils.

I'm now retired and I believe that the new HT has now designated some of the toilets as staff only.

Sorry I don't have any "official" comments to make or quote, but I'm worried about the girls' safety and security. All the jargon seems to point towards "shared spaces". Yes it talks of cubicles with wash basins, but if there aren't "girls only" areas (where they can change, talk, etc.), they're missing out. Individual cubicles are obviously needed in girls' (or "shared") toilets, but not having shared washing areas makes the whole thing sound as if isolating kids from each other.

My DD said that in the floor to ceiling cubicles, your friend can't pass you toilet paper or sanitary items under the wall panel/ door.

Good point.

Yes, a school in my city fairly recently installed gender neutral toilets ( at the behest an activist head teacher), but there were many complaints from parents due to the fact that these toilets were to be monitored by CCTV - which parents objected to.

The head clearly understands there could be issues with privacy and safety, but let his ideological fervour overwhelm his common sense. There is no clamour for mixed sex toilets. Why do it at all?