Safeguarding concerns about floor-to-ceiling cubicles in mixed-sex primary toilets Scotland

[IKnowWhatAWomanIs]

A friend’s child attends a primary school in Scotland, East Ren, where they've recently refurbished the toilets. They've turned one former girls' block and one former boys' block into gender-neutral/mixed-sex facilities. They've kept the basic layout (separate rooms with multiple cubicles) but removed the urinals from the ex-boys' one, so now both are just cubicles. Crucially, they've installed floor-to-ceiling doors on all the cubicles.

This feels like a massive safeguarding red flag to me: full-height doors mean almost no adult visibility or quick oversight. If a child collapses (e.g., seizure, asthma attack, diabetic issue), tries to self-harm, or is being bullied/abused inside, no one would know until it's too late. Partial-height doors allow better monitoring while still giving privacy.

There is a woman, whose username I forget, on here that is an expert on single sex toilets & I would love to say the magic spell so she appears to give her opinion.

What kids are being exposed to because of the gender zealots shows once again that safeguarding concerns go out of the window in the name of 'trans' inclusion.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jz5ed7lv5o

@keeptoiletsafe I think this might be 1 for you

Isn't this sex discrimination? Boys/men deserve single sex spaces too. In addition to the safety risks.

I really can't convince myself that full-height doors are a "massive safeguarding red flag". Seems like a massive reach to me.

Obviously people can collapse, and it'll be slightly slower to realise that with full-height doors. But we have them all over the place in single toilet / sink rooms? Not a lot of people dying from this.

Just feels like a desperate urge to hate a compromise solution to me.

Interestingly, there’s a reason they were designed as they used to be. The traditional single sex rooms with shared sink area and cubicles have better ventilation which reduces the spread of flu, measles etc. It reduces the opportunity for sexual behaviour and importantly coerced behaviour. It’s immediately obvious is someone has a health emergency which is surprisingly common as people head for the toilets when they start feeling ill.

I think there were two cases last year where people were found in locked single occupancy toilets several days after their death. That wouldn’t happen in a cubicle.

A couple of years ago a young girl I know took an overdose in the girls toilet cubicles at her school & was only discovered as there were gaps above / below the doors. Happened more than once & with other kids. Think about other scenarios that happen in schools nowadays...self harm, abuse, bullying...Full height doors possibly less risky if they face onto a public corridor (not good for schools I feel tho'), but if they're in a separate room of cubicles it's a risk.

@Keeptoiletssafe

For you

(Post above @ ing you missed an s out so adding this incase you don't see in Active)

I agree OP, I think floor to ceiling cubicles are a risk as it prevents any possible emergencies being detected which would mean people not getting medical help that may be needed.

I say this as someone with epilepsy who once had a seizure in a toilet cubicle and it was only realised because someone else walked into the toilets and saw my arms on the floor because they were protruding out from underneath the bottom of the cubicle door. The paramedics were then called and they were only able to access me by climbing over the partition between my cubicle and cubicle next to me.)

Thank you for posting for me!

Yes children have died in schools that have full height doors recently. CPR was attempted in all cases but sadly wasn’t successful. I can’t say it would have made any difference but I do know other cases (including mine) where it did.

Did you know that it is such a regular occurrence that people collapse in toilets that the building regs say you should be able to unlock it from the outside and change the way an inwards opening toilet door opens or take it off its hinges as a body falls against the door and impedes entry. What I am trying to do it prevent it getting to retrieval by rescuing that child or aduly asap. Schools have to have defibrillators so there should be every chance to help. But you shouldn’t be making the place people go when they feel ill (physically or mentally) completely private.

The DfE expects all state funded schools to have at least one defibrillator on site because defibrillation can increase the survival rate by as much as 70%. But knowing the person has collapsed in the first place, and therefore getting help as quickly as possible, is vital. Schools must ensure arrangements are in place to support pupils with medical conditions. Some children and staff, such as those with epilepsy, may be considered disabled under the definition set out in the Equality Act 2010, and schools must comply with their duties under that Act. Pupils with medical conditions that may occasionally lead to collapse should have care plans. It has been known for these plans to specifically exclude the use of the enclosed disabled toilets for the very reason that no one would be alerted to a collapse. For example, for people with diabetes or epilepsy there can be a period of confusion pre-collapse, so the person's awareness to pull an emergency cord or shout for help is compromised.

These designs affect females more. If you look at where sexual assaults and rapes take place within school buildings its places in private - store cupboards and toilets. I have a few statistics if you want them but no one (except me) has been collecting data it seems. The most accurate figure I can get on rapes is around one per school day but there’s a few caveats to that and it was a decade ago.

This is a good summary about what happens in schools and shows lots of women are concerned about these designs:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/drug-dealing-drinking-dirt-problems-28517175

I noticed this in a Scottish school this month:
https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/inverness-secondary-school-takes-toilets-out-of-use-at-class-428674/
You will note it’s the unisex full height cubicles that are closed.

This is an academic and teacher going on about vaping and how they have resuscitated pupils having seizures and how they dread it happening (where they can’t see them) and mention in a bathroom:
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/english-school-children-unwittingly-smoking-spice-spiked-vapes-finds-university-of-bath/

This is an American company who manufacture devices to British schools with ‘gender neutral’ toilets - they pay a lot of money for voice activated alarms in cubicles which send a message to staff when a child says ‘help me’ or ‘stop it’. If you look at the blurb you can see it’s directly related to the privacy of the design:
https://spaces4learning.com/whitepapers/2023/09/single-use-bathroom-security.aspx

When I did a FOI on whether their standard designs with a 5mm door gap had been risk assessed or EIA done, the Department of Education (for England) said they didn’t hold them. I had asked what happens in the event of a fire, the risk of assaults on girls, for children with health conditions and disabilities (like the 1 in 100 with epilepsy), for those that have a Medical emergency. They said that the responsibility for safety was ultimately the governors or equivalent depending on how the school was set up. And their designs were only guidance.

The reason given to not have gaps is so children don’t use their phones. However, with completely private cubicles they should be ventilated properly with mechanical ventilation. They should also have individual visual audio alarms for fire. This means a new problem is more likely - cameras can be hidden in cubicles when no one can see you installing them in all the extra devices. I have more incidences of this happening with male staff spying on children rather than boys setting up cameras. There’s at least one school case in Scotland at the moment. I don’t know of any voyeurs convicted that are female.

I started this campaign as I am an ex-teacher and realise how dangerous this design is. I saved a young woman (in a nightclub) who had turned blue from choking on her own vomit. She was lying on the floor of her cubicle and we saw her straight away when we entered the ladies. Like a pp we got over the top of the cubicle to rescue her and get her breathing again.

If you want any further info, happy to try and answer questions.

11% of cardiac arrests happen in a toilet cubicle/room. A 10cm to 15cm gap from floor to door has saved many people’s lives. A heart attack happens every 5 minutes in the UK, same with stroke. But the Health and Safety Executive say (for English non-domestic buildings excluding schools) this non-private design is only suitable for a cubicle that leads out onto a single sex environment.

Assaults in unisex school toilets is a worldwide problem. India have just made toilets single sex in schools. There’s a bit of academic research here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292125000030

Like a super hero appearing you've provided exactly what I need! Thank you so much 🙌.

This is going to be very useful for writing to the head teacher & for challenging local authorities & schools on this issue as it seems there's a real push in Scotland by the trans lobby groups for schools to have gender neutral toilets alongside single sex after the Lady Ross & SC rulings have made it more difficult to make all school toilets gender neutral. If they're going to provide facilities for kids who feel uncomfortable about using single sex toilets they've got to think hard about how they provide somewhere truly safe rather than go for the quick fix.

It's not a safeguarding red flag - an adult peeping over the top to check if children are ok would be though. I can't imagine newly refurbished toilets being installed without locks that can be opened from the outside with a screw driver.

IKnow, do these fully enclosed cubicles include wash basins? Plenty of girls start their periods in primary school. Imagine having to deal with that aged 10 and know that the boys might be in the room when you leave the cubicle to wash your hands. Plus, are they going to put hygiene bins in the cubicles for the disposal of used period products? So many questions!

I remember this Scottish reference too. Unfortunately they say the below then ignore it in some of the other designs they reference but this is the ‘Principles’ section

Toilet design in the learning environment. haa Design on behalf of Architecture and Design
Scotland 2019
Principles p.4
"For the school, the ability to check if there is an emergency within the cubicles (e.g. if someone loses consciousness) is important; floor gaps make this easier". "In terms of hygiene and maintenance, ease of access for cleaning staff and robust materials are important during the design and specification. Floor gaps in doors and cubicles make cleaning easier and increase air flow. One of the most quoted reasons reported for pupils not using school toilets is their cleanliness; clean, well maintained facilities should be a given and there should be simple procedures in place for pupils to report when this is not the case." "Every space within a school needs to be managed properly. Again, like safety, the management of toilets (e.g. dealing with vandalism or other problem activities) is a challenge that depends on individual schools and their approach to monitoring private spaces. The design and location of toilets will dictate the ease of passive supervision by staff. Cubicles with small floor gaps reduce the likelihood of antisocial behaviour or vandalism occurring"

Sometimes I wonder why I am on MN, and then I read the post by @Keeptoiletssafe and I am grateful that this site exists and reminded why I am.

😊you are very kind. Just trying to keep everyone safe, especially the medically vulnerable and girls.

In Scotland you want the 1967 schools premises act as it states the requirements for toilet gaps and number of toilets per number of male and female pupils

Interesting. I can see the argument that there might be a safety benefit in some circumstances.

And yet. We don't have floor gaps at home. Does anyone choose that? If I have a choice of toilets in front of me at work, I won't choose the one with gaps, I'll choose the private one with a full height door. Is that just me?

The illness one is interesting, because I reckon when I think I'm about to vomit, I'm even more likely to choose a private setup, even though I can see that argument makes sense in those circumstances! Illogical maybe.

The claim that gaps can reduce bullying is a bit weird because it's obviously untrue; there's far more scope for bullying with the gaps there, unfortunately.

Someone on Twitter calling themselves SpeakOutSister has referenced this thread, and either fails to understand, or is pretending not to understand, why floor-to-ceiling doors on toilets present a safety risk:

https://x.com/speakoutsister/status/2034575630595924039

Keeptoiletssafe, there's a Scotgov consultation currently open on the School Premises Regs 1967 and it would be really helpful if you could submit your valuable insight.

https://consult.gov.scot/learning-directorate/proposals-to-update-the-school-premises-regulation/

Awesome, spread the word 😁

Thank you. I will look at this. I have lots of evidence and research that will help.

I use completely enclosed cubicles wherever I can, I much much prefer the privacy. I could just as easily have medical emergency while at home alone, but nobody's going around saying we should abandon full-height front doors.

I appreciate things might be a bit different in schools where obviously children always need a degree of supervision. But children are not likely to have heart attacks and I would hope an adult would notice if they were in the toilet for too long anyway. Realistically teachers are not patrolling toilets on the offchance that someone might have collapsed in there, are they?

@IKnowWhatAWomanIs This picture is useful to get the message across too - click to see the whole image.

For what it’s worth, I want everyone to be safe in toilets that’s why I have been looking at everyone’s experiences. This is from a student who wants to use the ‘gender neutral’ toilets in America. The reason I looked at this particular model was this is the one that introduced one enclosed private toilet on each floor - similar to what was newly discussed over here. It’s worth noting in America the door gaps are huge for single sex toilets. In this country it’s 15cm floor-door which was enough for me to see a young woman had collapsed and was blue.

This is how it went (secondary school age):

The gender-neutral bathrooms are both horrible and amazing. I am so glad we have them, but they are disgusting, mostly because of the way students treat them. The issue mainly comes from how small and how few they are, and it's not uncommon that the four small bathrooms are filled with sex, drugs or vaping. We need to address these problems, or the gender-neutral bathrooms will continue to be the most disgusting in the school….I consider everything in the third floor bathroom a biohazard. Almost every time I make the mistake of going in, I leave trying to purge my mind of the horrors / just witnessed. Whether it is people having sex, poop smeared on the walls, or the toilet being clogged with an entire roll of toilet paper, horrible things have happened in that bathroom.
According to a teacher at the school above, since the number of students who need gender-neutral bathrooms is increasing, one bathroom per floor is no longer sufficient. They have more than one-quarter of our student body identifying as LGBTQ. The bathrooms are in less prominent locations than the men's and women's bathrooms, making it easy for students to get away with misbehaving. These bathrooms frequently end up closed and vandalized.
Again the privacy of these bathrooms is an issue. A staff member said the job can be difficult, as bathrooms are private spaces for students, 'It's not great because you've got a private space that's publicly accessible and difficult for school staff to monitor. It's true of any bathroom really!
Other problems staff and students identified with the gender neutral bathrooms were:
a continuing issue of faculty monitoring is allotting time to stand in front of a doorway for long periods of time during the school day: "I just don't have enough staff to have people sitting outside of the bathroom!

• the possible discomfort students may face regarding their identity: 'Especially for students who aren't out, if they feel like they are being monitored walking into the bathrooms and getting questioned about their motives in the bathrooms, it can make people feel uncomfortable. That can have a big impact on people's mental state'
• Students are not comfortable using them due to state they are left in so will not go to the bathroom at all during the day. They are 'full', 'too gross to use', 'filled with vaping at least twice a week' To have enough gender neutral bathrooms for each floor would take a classroom's worth of space.
• Creative ways of trying to reducing substance use in the bathrooms, such as posters and literature, have been met with resistance and defaced and torn off
• The suggestion of more cameras around the corridors and common spaces was tempered by the fact they can't be put inside the bathrooms.
• Students being late to class due to not being able to access the bathroom.

One solution put forward by the student was to make more (private) gender neutral bathrooms so the sex, drugs and vandalism could be spread out.

In order to have the safest and cleanest toilets you need a gap at the bottom of doors and partitions upto 15cm, and preferably space above a standard height door and the partitions. This is only acceptable and regulated in single sex designs in the U.K. as the cubicles have to lead out on to a single sex environment.

Well done for raising awareness of this. Gaps under cubicles are a key safety design. Thanks why we need single-sex toilets so that the safety features - gaps - can remain.