Toilets in mixed secondary schools

[MrsMurphyIWish]

At DD’s secondary school the toilets are segregated by sex however they are in a communal area ie 2 rows of 4 cubicles opposite each other with a row of shared sinks in the middle (if that makes sense)? This style is across the three floors of the building. Does anyone know whether this will have to change in future?

DD has never complained about the toilets (apart from them smelling of vape!). The issue doesn’t affect my school as I teach single sex. Also wondering how common this style of toilets are. My last school still has - as far as I’m aware - traditional toilets.

They were already illegal. Toilets must be completely enclosed in a room with a sink if for use by both sexes or a separate room with stalls and a row of sinks used by only the female sex and stalls and urinals if for the male sex. A single room with two rows of stalls and sinks in between that is used by both sexes is not legal even if the boys only use 1 side and the girls the other.

It’s not a “room”. It’s an area off a corridor so open plan (if that makes sense). Does that make it still illegal? Even as a teacher I feel very ignorant of this. How does it even pass Heath and Safety if illegal?

I guess they might have to make one floor girls one floor boys and one floor mixed

So a young girl washing period blood off her hands can be seen by anyone walking down the corridor?

Isn't it amazing the lengths people will go to to avoid doing the obvious, proven, existing and legal thing: female toilets, male toilets and disabled toilets.

The only justification to do otherwise is lack of space, which is rarely the case in big public buildings like schools.

It's unlikely to be the case in existing buildings which were built when separate women's/men's toilets were the norm.

It shouldn't be an issue when designing new buildings - they should be designed in accordance with building regs:
with women's and men's separate toilets + accessible + if there's space, a 'universal' toilet, in other words a gender neutral fourth space, may be added.

There's no excuse for new builds to only have gender neutral toilets, which I've seen referred to as 'the obvious way forward'.

On the contrary, a new build is the ideal opportunity to design in all the spaces required by building regs from the word go.

Yes.

DD is in Yr 9 now. I only know the toilet design as we go and watch her in performances and we use the toilets. She has never even mentions them (apart from the vaping) which I find sad, as if she’s been conditioned to think this is acceptable.

Yes that's actually even worse than the room I thought that you ment (as they've done with my DS's new build school).

it seems to me they need to
a) put up a wall with door
b) make single sex so eg ground floor girls, next floor boys

And then if they want to, make some mixed sex toilets with enclosed rooms.

If they do at all.

I’ll write an email but I’m not sure it’ll have an impact. At my school we don’t have the toilet issue (single sex) but we have another whole host of issues such as letting students be known by different names/pronouns without parental knowledge (have posted here in past about it) which I’ve raised as a concern but been ignored, so I’m not sure the toilet situation will change.

Edit: not going to accept it though. Just need to find some clear cut legislation to include in my email.

Read this: “Open Plan Design:
Schools may use open-plan washrooms with full-height cubicles to allow for monitoring of the communal hand wash area”.

As the toilet cubicles are floor to ceiling does this mean I have no grounds to complain?

Toilets are honestly a bloody nightmare in secondary schools whatever you do. If you put up a wall with a door you are creating an unsupervised space where kids can gather and do whatever the hell they like (mostly use their phones and vape but can be much worse).

We have the self contained cubicles with sinks which means you get about 10 kids bundling into each cubicle with at least a couple sitting on the sink. Issues there with the sinks coming off the walls (and how large the space is meaning they can fit so many in) so I can see why a school would want to take the sinks out and put them in a public place.

Like these but with 2 straight rows of sinks?

DS goes to a small independent. All loos are sex-specific, and split by ages.

Junior boys and junior girls - yrs 7-9, Senior boys and senior girls - yrs 10-13.

Changing rooms are sex-specific, either side of the gym.

Seems to work ok, haven't heard of any complaints.

My school has the enclosed cubicles, sinks and driers too. Even in my lovely single sex school we have issues with students congregating in groups, breaking the sinks, flooding, smearing pads across walls. Logistical nightmare!

I’m not a fan of these cubicles as we have had a few girls taken overdoses in school - luckily no fatalities.

How did schools even get built like this? Unless it's a really old building (which most schools aren't), surely they'd have to be built in according with Building Regs and other legislation, which surely require separate toilets?

Yes.

The building is about 20 years old. The old building would have traditional toilets! It was demolished in the 00’s and rebuilt.

The changing rooms are sex specific so no issues there.

It will interest you to know I have lots of information about school toilets. Including that the Department of Education hold no risk assessments that they can give me for these types of toilets. When looking at the toilet section safety isn’t mentioned. Just privacy lots of times. The cpr that has been done when children have been retrieved from these toilets has not been successful in the cases I have seen.

The reason there has been a big push in these toilet designs, I have researched for a couple of years. It is due to academisation and designs going a bit free for all, mobile phones with cameras and the influence of American transactivist architects, then the DfE mixing it all up to create a School Output design that is dangerous.

New schools are all built like this. It’s intended to address toilet issues caused by lack of supervision- bullying, antisocial behaviour.

As a teacher you could spend half your life dealing with toilet issues.

My preferred option would be similar to nursery toilets. Traditional set up but the enclosed wall where the sinks are is only chest high. Adults can see across and see behaviour issues, but children still have privacy. You would see issues, but not normal bathroom behaviour.

@MrsMurphyIWish It you really want, I can do a big cut and paste of my FOI with the DfE and their response to these toilet designs.

@Keeptoiletssafe i have tagged you because I feel this could be a useful way forward! What do you think? Is anywhere looking at this style, would you know?

@Keeptoiletssafe Would you mind? I would be really interested to read it.

The old style we were used to as children (single sex, door gaps, off the corridor) is definitely safer.
When I was teaching, this is what was still in place.
It’s only the last few years it’s gone design-silly.

Ok. Format is all over the place. FOI is detailed as it pulls in all the design strands that are a problem if you don’t have door gaps. I have research and evidence for each point. My the time I did this DfE I had given them the information I had on assaults and health and medical risks. Off the top of my head, I don’t think I have them the info on the recent deaths. I would have thought they would have those but they didn’t have rape data in 2015 or 2021 when the BBC and Ofsted looked into sexual assaults in schools.