Are lunchtime unisex toilets in a primary school legally compliant?

[TheFeministGovernor]

The primary school I govern at was built with unisex toilets. Over time, some toilets have been changed to be boys / girls only, although they do open into a communal sinks area. There is at least a side for boys and a side for girls in most toilet blocks.

As far as I understand it, this complies with legislation, as whilst unisex facilities exist somewhere in the school, the option to use single-sex facilities is also available for all children over the age of 8.

However, at lunchtime, children have access to a restricted number of toilets - for absolutely common sense reasons (namely: not allowing children to maurad throughout the entire school without supervision). However, at lunchtime this means there is no access to single-sex provision.

Am I right in thinking this is not legal, or are we still at the stage where we are waiting for absolute clarity from the Department of Education? I don't want to quote information to the headteacher that's not absolutely correct, as he has previously been dismissive of these concerns.

I would be careful not to overstate it without knowing the exact layout, but I don’t think the school can simply say “there are single-sex toilets somewhere on site” if those toilets are not actually available when children are allowed to use the toilet.

The relevant rule is the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012. For pupils aged 8 or over, schools must provide separate toilet facilities for boys and girls, unless the toilet is in a room that can be secured from the inside and is intended for use by one pupil at a time.

So the question is really: what toilets are actually available to the children at lunchtime?

If the lunchtime toilets are individual lockable rooms, used by one child at a time, then that may fit the exception. But if they are mixed-sex multi-cubicle toilet blocks, with boys and girls using the same block/shared area, and no accessible single-sex alternative at lunchtime, then I would be asking the headteacher to explain exactly how that complies.

I also think there is a practical point here. In a primary school, once some children are 8 or over, it makes sense for the toilet provision generally to comply with the over-8 rules. Otherwise the school is left trying to operate different legal standards for different year groups within the same toilet arrangements, which sounds like a safeguarding and supervision mess.

I would ask:

• Which toilets are available at lunchtime?
• Are separate boys’ and girls’ toilets available to pupils aged 8 and over at lunchtime?
• If not, are the available toilets genuinely single-user rooms lockable from the inside?
• Has the school carried out a written safeguarding risk assessment for restricting access to single-sex toilets at lunchtime?
• How does the arrangement comply with the School Premises Regulations?

I wouldn’t necessarily say “this is definitely unlawful” without seeing the layout, but if children aged 8+ only have access to mixed-sex multi-user toilets at lunchtime, I would say the school has a serious compliance question to answer. Supervision convenience does not override the requirement to provide suitable toilet facilities.

@TheFeministGovernor - I'd send something like:

Dear [Headteacher],

Further to our previous conversation about toilet provision, I am writing to put my concerns in writing and to ask for a clear response.

When I raised this previously, I did not feel the concern was taken seriously. I appreciate that the school has practical supervision issues to manage at lunchtime, but I do not think those practical issues answer the underlying question about whether pupils continue to have access to compliant toilet provision throughout the school day.

As I understand it, some of the school’s toilet facilities were originally built as unisex provision, and some have since been designated for boys or girls. I also understand that, during normal lesson time, pupils may have access to a wider range of toilet facilities, including some separate provision for boys and girls.

My concern is specifically about lunchtime, when access is restricted to a smaller number of toilets. If, at lunchtime, pupils aged 8 and over do not have access to separate boys’ and girls’ toilets, and the available toilets are not individual lockable single-user toilet rooms, then I would like the school to explain how that arrangement complies with the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012.

My understanding is that the regulations require suitable toilet and washing facilities to be provided for pupils, and that separate toilet facilities must be provided for boys and girls aged 8 or over, except where the toilet is in a room that can be secured from the inside and is intended for use by one pupil at a time.

In practical terms, that exception is not simply an ordinary mixed-sex cubicle arrangement. It refers to a genuinely self-contained single-user toilet room, commonly described in current toilet design terminology as a universal toilet. Such provision should provide proper privacy and enclosure, including a full-height or floor-to-ceiling door, and the wash basin should be inside the room/cubicle, not in a shared communal area outside.

On that basis, I do not think it is enough that single-sex toilets exist somewhere on the school site if pupils are not actually permitted to use them at lunchtime. Lunchtime is part of the school day. The question is what provision is actually available to children when they need to use the toilet.

I would therefore be grateful if you could answer the following questions directly:

1. Which toilet facilities are pupils permitted to use during lunchtime?
2. Are separate boys’ and girls’ toilets available to pupils aged 8 and over during lunchtime?
3. If separate boys’ and girls’ toilets are not available during lunchtime, are all the available toilets genuinely self-contained single-user toilet rooms, lockable from the inside, and intended for use by one pupil at a time?
4. Do those single-user toilet rooms have full-height or floor-to-ceiling doors, proper enclosure, and a wash basin inside each individual room/cubicle?
5. If the lunchtime provision includes mixed-sex multi-cubicle toilets, or toilets with shared communal wash basins outside the cubicles, how does the school consider that compliant with the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012?
6. Has the school carried out a written safeguarding risk assessment in relation to restricting access to single-sex toilets during lunchtime?
7. If such a risk assessment exists, please could you confirm when it was completed and whether governors have reviewed it?
8. If the school relies on self-contained universal toilets as the alternative to separate boys’ and girls’ toilets, has the school carried out a written safeguarding risk assessment specifically for that arrangement?
9. In particular, has the school assessed the risk that a pupil could enter a fully enclosed, lockable toilet room, become unwell, pass out, self-harm, or otherwise need assistance, and not be found promptly because the room is designed to be private and fully enclosed?

10. What supervision, checking, emergency access, and staff response arrangements are in place for any such fully enclosed universal toilets? 11. Has the school considered the practical point that, because some children in a primary school are aged 8 or over, it may be simpler and safer for the school’s general toilet arrangements to comply with the requirements for pupils aged 8 and over, rather than trying to operate different standards for different year groups?

I am not asking the school to allow children to wander around the site unsupervised. I understand the supervision concern. However, supervision arrangements need to be organised in a way that still allows pupils access to toilet facilities that are lawful, private, safe and suitable.

Given that this has already been raised and dismissed verbally, I would appreciate a written response explaining the school’s position and the basis on which it considers the current lunchtime arrangement compliant.

Yours sincerely,

[Name]

Thank you both - this is really helpful.

Reflecting on your words, I'm now wondering if none of the toilets are compliant.

Each toilet block opens directly onto the corridor (for safeguarding reasons). Each toilet block is divided into two halves, with a block of sinks in the middle, shared between boys and girls. The boys use one half of the cubicles and the girls use the other. There are no lockable cubicles with a sink inside other than for staff (and totally impractical to designate these for children as there are nowhere near enough).

Ah, well I can tell you now - they are not even a bit compliant.

I believe the shared sink space is not enough, there needs to be cubicles & handwashing facilities for each sex to be compliant.

I'm sure @Keeptoiletssafe could advise

Is this useful?
Toilets in schools - childlawadvice.org.uk

Hello. Which country are you in OP and when was the school built or current toilets refurbished?

Did someone mention toilet design?
Aaaand here she is, as if by magic - KTS!

It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that suddenly reached Mole KTS in the darkness, making him her tingle through and through with its very familiar appeal, even while yet [s]he could not clearly remember what it was. [S]He stopped dead in his tracks, his her nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that had so strongly moved him her. A moment, and [s]he had caught it again - someone on Mumsnet had brought up the subject of toilet design!

with Apologies to Wind in the Willows😁

😅I tap notifications to see if more posts have been added to threads I’m on and it brings up if someone mentions me!
I think it must look like I am on here constantly searching for toilet threads 😬

Hello!

The school was built in 2017 ish. I'm in England. The architecture of the school is obviously nobody's fault, but I want to make sure I'm doing my bit as a governor to comply with the law - and to make toilets dignified and safe for all students.

Then they are not single sex.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/29/scottish-government-rules-schools-must-provide-single-sex-toilets-for-children

In Scotland that was made clear very recently, but that was because of the specific wording used in the Scottish regulations.

I don't think the position of the handwashing facilities in English schools has been ever been argued in court. (I want to say justiciated, but google tells me that's not a word.)

This document
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a800013ed915d74e622be2b/Advice_on_standards_for_school_premises.pdf
provides that:

"Hand washing facilities are provided within or in the immediate vicinity of every toilet;"

That is very different from the Scottish rule where the court found that “sanitary accommodation” in Regulation 15 comprises not only water closets and urinals, but also wash basins near them, and that the "sanitary accomodation" had to separate for boys and girls - hence separate wash basins too.

Going on a bit further, that document I linked to for England and Wales quotes the regulations as follows:

a) suitable toilet and washing facilities are provided for the sole use of pupils;
b) separate toilet facilities for boys and girls aged 8 years or over are provided ...

Since washing facilities are described distinctly from toilet facilities in (a) and in (b) only the toilet facilities have to be separated by sex, I think it would be hard for a court to rule that the regulations required separated wash basins, as they did in Scotland.

But that's just my uneducated opinion, that shared wash basins in English schools are legal.

Final post from me (sorry) - the regulations prior to the School Premises Regulations 2012 - which are the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1999 - are very clear that washrooms have to be separated by sex (over the age of 8) and washrooms have to contain washbasins.

So prior to 2012, your arrangement would not be legal. Post 2012, it is.

Hi just seen you have updated. I will come back to this tomorrow.

But when the wording says ‘facilities’ it implies sinks too.

When the wording says ‘conveniences’ it normally means toilets.

For instance, in Document T:
Toilet facilities
Sanitary accommodation that contains water-closets (WCs) and/or urinals, along with washbasins and hand-drying facilities.

Also, although the judgement was in Scotland, there were aspects that mentioned the Equality Act (2010) which covers England too.

If they are not compliant, can you think of a way to rectify that as Governer? Bearing in mind the school's budget etc.

The first point is about separating children from staff.
The first point is open to interpretation however it still has to comply with other regs regarding toilets in schools.

So it’s a big school with multiple toilet blocks. At a first step I wonder if different entire toilet blocks could be designated for boys / girls, though appreciate it’ll be further to walk for the children and less convenient.

I hate to be horrid but it IS someone's fault. The regs were and are still clear, though they are clearer now. This was never legal, it should never have been built. If you need to try and get some money out of someone to fix this, that might become very important.

Also worth pointing out that many girls start having their periods in primary schools. It's a particularly unpleasant type of adult who condemns these girls to having to manage menstruation in the company of young boys.

I don’t know too much about primary schools toilets as I focused on secondary design as an ex secondary school teacher. Here’s what I have found out through a few years looking at this.

It absolutely does not surprise me in the slightest that this school was built in 2017 and had all mixed sex toilets. That was a standard design option. The Education Estates part of Department For Education were fully aware and signed them off for secondary schools. I have saved the DfE design briefs that up until last year were very different. Now they have changed them since FWS and state single sex toilet suites.

Schools are now in a mess. It’s been a big design experiment and many will have to change their toilets. The mixed sex toilet phase started gathering momentum at the time of Building Schools for the Future and academisation. Many designers thought they were an innovative way forward. Some schools resisted but school leaders had to opt out and give specific reasons why not have certain features in their approved designs, which I think is too big a responsibility when you are looking at whole school plans.

The reason designers could get away with it is because 1992 legislation and Approved Document T has exclusions for schools. Ironically, all this I believe has led to schools having worse health and safety standards than most other non domestic provision that conforms to British Standards and work legislation.

When the FWS verdict was announced, I thought this is going to cost millions to put right in schools. I am amazed there’s been nothing on the news. I think the money should come from the Department for Education to schools, not out of individual school budgets.

I have had quite a bit of correspondence with DfE and got information from doing Freedom on Information requests. I asked for risk assessments and equality and impact assessments for toilet cubicles being mixed sex and fully private in schools. They do not hold them. I then asked who is liable if a child comes to harm in these private designs and they gave me a list depending on the type of school but it does boil down to the governors in many.

My initial area of concern was children having medical emergencies and those with medical conditions. Once I started looking in to this and realised the extent of sexual assaults inside school premises, I expanded my concerns. I have concentrated on wider public provision more recently as what’s happened in schools is a good example of why not to do this in general.

I have got literature and links I can give you if you want. I am not sure if your toilets are floor to ceiling in privacy but I can try and answer more specific questions.

What is very interesting is I noted the Department For Education this year have been quoting BS6465. These are British Standards and are what Approved Document T was based on. I have not got access to them - they cost £££ each and there’s 4 of them. I have chatted to lots of people about them. What is frustrating in my campaign to put door gaps into toilet design, is the life-saving feature is not specifically shown in diagrams on the 2024 Approved Document T (long story and involves transactivists).

HSE told me only single sex cubicles within a single sex environment can have door gaps. Irrespective of door gaps, you will see in Approved Document T: ‘1.22 The layout when entering, exiting and using a toilet room or cubicle should cater for the safety,
privacy and dignity of users. Cubicle doors should only open into single-sex toilet accommodation’. I presume this is taken from the most recent BS6465 but I do not know if this would extend to schools, particularly primary schools as their toilets have always been designed with big door gaps for supervision.

This it what BS6465 said at the time of The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which makes sense within the legislation that unisex toilets have to be a a separate enclosed room:

BS6465 from 1986:
WC compartments should be self contained, but where a range of WCs is provided, each in a separate cubicle within a single room, e.g. in schools, offices, factories, public buildings and public conveniences, it simplifies ventilation, cleaning and, to some extent, supervision and prevention of wilful misuse, if the cubicle walls terminate above the floor as well as below the ceiling. These advantages are gained only at the expense of a certain degree of privacy. Where cubicles are used, the whole room in which they are situated may be regarded as a single unit for the purposes of ventilation.

Where partition walls and doors of WC cubicles are kept clear of the floor, the clearance should be not less than 100mm and not more than 150mm. Partitions and doors that terminate below ceiling level should be not less than 2 m in height from the floor.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ehrc-guidance-causes-trans-toilet-trouble-for-schools/

Typo: It was 1984 not 1986 for BS6465. It was the edition of the British Standards that was in place at the time of 1992 work legislation. Standards tend to be updated every 10 years or more.

This is a summary of the Scottish judgement. Look at the Equality Act bits because these should affect England too. I don’t know if technically a parent/school/governor/pupil has to take this to court in England.

https://judiciary.scot/home/sentences-judgments/judgments/2026/06/04/de-and-fg-against-west-lothian-council

And this is where perhaps the inconvenience will outweigh any potential risks.