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.

In my area, the toilets are single sex, but the sink areas are open to the corridor. Not great if someone has a flooding problem and needs to clean up.

Our LA originally decreed that staff in the new builds had to share with pupils, but individual HTs gradually changed that.

Yes and the judgement against the boarders council specifically states that it's sex discrimination against female pupils not to have adequate single sex facilities but hay I guess the SNP knows best 🤨🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

That’ll be more of our money spent defending another case in court!

I have seen this arrangement in mixed sex schools. Essentially the corridor is the loo and anyone can see people going in and out, washing hands etc. IMHO I don't think such arrangements are safe. Although people are passing all the time between lessons, no-one is watching all the time and CCTV will only pick up incidents after they have happened. Nothing to stop the positioning of cameras, or someone waiting in an enclosed toilet for someone else to come in. Pretty sure they are illegal - and totally unlovely.

What's your issue with it ?

I'm resurrecting this thread if I may - my child's school is the same as the OP. I have had a meeting with the school and they said they are not mixed sex because girls use one side and boys use the other. I said that still makes the area mixed-sex. I also pointed out that the washing of hands isn't always straightforward and girls want to do this without boys around. They were adamant it was single sex because of the two sides of the area. People tell me that this set-up is not legal but I can't see a piece of legislation that supports this specifically. Along one corridor they have 2 areas. I cannot understand why they wouldn't just make one girls and one boys, and I want to suggest this, but need a legal reason for backing.
It is a new school and a big one, and there was no reason to make the building like this.

I do not think it is. Washing of hands should be single sex as well.

The problem is that statutory guidance says ‘the toilet facility’ and they may argue whether that includes the sink. I would argue it does.

The unisex provision was originally meant to be an enclosed lockable toilet room (proper room with toilet and sink).

The DfE are in a mess with this. The toilet designs you mention have been around for a few years and there’s going to be lots of schools in the same situation.

I think that schools are wrong to have toilet designs like this. However I can see why they do.

Look at this from the DfE school specific brief:
Drafting note continued:
In Secondary Schools:
• Whether the school requires single sex or unisex toilets.
• Whether hand-washing areas in toilets should be open on to the circulation space or enclosed by means of a door.
• Whether the school has a specific requirement (with justifiable reasons) to not have the standard floor to ceiling cubicle systems.
Generally:
• Any differentiation between toilet facilities for different age or gender groups?

There needs to be a detailed look at changing these designs so that safety gets prioritised. There’s very justifiable reasons that full height cubicles shouldn’t be standard for a start.

So we're in a situation where many (most?) schools (including new builds) have toilet layouts which are unsuitable, and may well not even comply with existing legislation? How the hell is common washing areas acceptable? And how did we get here? All this has been nodded through for years.

Yes, you're right. Our local school considers their toilets single sex because they see the facilities as being the toilet cubicles and sinks, whereas I consider the whole space as mixed sex.
During events at the school it is very strange to use the same toilet areas as the men, so goodness knows what it is like for teenagers.
The entrance to the area is also very wide and on the corridor, so it is also feels very open. Not a comfortable place to be.

I was replying specifically to this message regarding facilities.

Yes I can't understand what is going through their heads when they makes these decisions to not give each sex their separate area. It is a conscious decision.

My local (state but we'll regarded) Secondary school keeps all fire alarms turned off so that lessons ate not interrupted by valine. The new build local primary only has mixed sex toilets available.

@pinkingshears That's awful!!

Vapes and why door gaps are needed:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/25/one-in-six-vapes-confiscated-at-english-schools-spiked-with-zombie-drug

Because the cubicles are private this what length schools are going to:
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-install-toilet-sensors-that-actively-listen-to-pupils/

Yes I was seriously unimpressed when both my young people told me, separately, over 4 years. I understand that they need to teach but its SO dangerous. Personally I think all students should have to hand in phones at Reception and not have access to vapes in school but I appreciate 'policing' that is hard. Re the primary - a teacher has kicked off massively about it to the Council.

What is going through their heads is trying to keep pupils safe from bullying, avoiding school budgets being spent on repair of vandalism and avoiding learning being disrupted because of children vaping or setting toilet paper on fire. Which could be prevent by spending a fortune on supervision or putting in CCTV which would lead to an outcry. I really think unless you work in a school you have no idea of the behaviour of some of the pupils and how much schools hands are tied trying to deal with it.

Which is why single sex spaces with simple door gaps is better and more effective than private mix sex cubicles.

With the latter designs, teachers and pupils are reporting many problems with ‘drug dealing, drinking and dirt’. ‘Kids would go in there to have sex, to drink alcohol. They’d push other kids in and lock themselves in with them. They’d block the drains and flood the corridor.” Another responded: “The toilets were really smelly and unpleasant. Because they were fully enclosed spaces they weren’t properly ventilated, and harder to clean.”
One teacher was worried someone could collapse unnoticed in a completely enclosed cubicle. They said: “The CCTV in the corridor was only any good retrospectively. The toilets had turn locks, so you could open them from the outside if you needed to, but you couldn’t hear through the door, couldn’t see whether there was one or two people in there, or if someone had collapsed.”

@helpfulperson None of that explains why they can't be single sex. I don't need to have worked in a school to know that children deserve single sex toilets.