See The building regulations 1992 and Equalities Act 2010
On the subject of toilet facilities:
Separate boys and girls toilet blocks must be available for all children over the age of eight, except for single cubicles designed for the use of one person at a time
Toilet blocks should be easily accessible by students
Student toilets and staff toilets should be kept separate, with the exception of disabled toilets, which may be used by children, staff and visitors
Staff should be able to passively monitor toilet blocks without compromising pupil privacy
Toilet blocks should be well lit and ventilated
Handwashing facilities should be installed in close reach of every toilet
So all in all, pretty straightforward. However, while most schools would probably welcome the lack of red tape, it can sometimes help to have a little more solid guidance. That’s where the next set of regulations comes in.
The Toilets in Schools guidance
While the Toilets in Schools guidance, issued by the now-defunct Department for Education and Skills back in 2007, has been superseded by the Advice on Standards for School Premises, it contains a lot of relevant information and goes into much more detail than its predecessor.
According to the Toilets in Schools Guidance: including for example
Locks on toilet cubicle doors should be easy to operate using a single motion to prevent pupils from becoming trapped.
Toilet cubicles should also be easily accessed by emergency services
Wash troughs are preferable to individual hand wash basins, because they are ‘easier to clean, aesthetically more pleasing, and reduce the potential for students to flood the toilets’
Theres more
Advice for Standards on School Premises.
The British Standard
Last but not least, we have the British Standard 6465-1:2006+A12009 (which we’ll henceforth refer to as ‘the British Standard’ for the sake of sanity). As the name suggests, this is the most technical of all the guidance, and gives some useful advice on the amount of fixtures required. ( this is probably not relevant to your question here OP )
The British Standard also states that disabled toilet facilities must be designed and furnished to the same standard as all other washrooms. They
Note any changes to provision within an existing building needs approval … so your school OP need to make that application
Part T of the Building regs has been added to Parts A, B1, B3, B4, B5 and M as a section that defines building work under the building regulations, in relation to “material alterations”.
This means any change of toilet design and/or designation covered by Part T, in an existing building, would need statutory approval. The consideration of compliance would be subject to the “no more unsatisfactory” consideration in terms of reasonableness.
Note- Removing single sex toilets does not constitute ‘ no more unsatisfactory’. So would not be compliant
The Building Safety Act 2022 places criminal accountability on the duty holders ( your school ) to ensure that the design and construction complies with the regulations.
The client’s requirements may determine the need for universal provision in addition to the single sex facilities.
Critically the regulation states that Universal Toilet Provision is considered as additional to the single sex toilet provision……