Yes, the DfE on the one hand have non-evidence based extremely high attendance targets with ever more punishment for schools and families that don't meet that yet they fail to do the one thing that would certainly reduce female school absence immediately (and probably boost male attendance a bit too) - ensure single SEX toilets.
All the faff of meetings and 'discussion' and waste of resources when a child's attendance falls below 95% but single sex loos would immediately slash a big chunk of absences and they don't do that.
It's mental. The people in charge are either evil or idiots.
Most girls of secondary age I know try not to wee all day, which is a health risk and will impact their ability to learn.
Most girls I know have also had time off during their periods, because the toilet provision (not just whether there are single sex toilets but largely this) is so poor that it's honestly IMO often child neglect to send them into an environment where they cannot reasonably manage their period with safety, privacy and dignity.
Those in charge in Government clearly don't give a shit. They're happy to impose impossible targets yet not do the absolutely most basic thing to address real needs. It's so depressing. It's also excluding girls from education at least some of the time - so denying them their human rights.
And of course AFAIK there's no good, easily accessible data on whether mixed-sex toilets contribute to either absences or rapes because they don't want to look (there wasn't this data easily accessible last time I looked about a year ago). They could easily look, the data will be there. Not all schools have mixed sex toilets there must be 100s of schools of comparable size and demographic where the only difference is whether the SLT and governing board has completely abandoned safeguarding or not. It's a research project I'd love to do and would sign up for but it falls in the same category as not recording data on ethnicity regarding grooming gang crimes. They know the answer already (because - in this case - it's a 'do bears shit in the woods' type question), and they don't want to have it confirmed.
They'd rather have more and more children unhappy in school, bullied over attendance and in some cases having their childhood destroyed via rape than install safer, better toilet provision, the first step of which would likely cost exactly nothing (making all school toilets over 8 single sex - which is already the law).
Make it make sense.