interiors


Are your toilets inclusive enough?


Modern British schools are becoming ever-more diverse places, but it’s not without its challenges says Paul Paul Thorn managing director of School-Toilets.co.uk, suppliers of school washware solutions


behind in the toilet department. It may not seem obvious (especially to male readers), but the traditional model of equal-sized girl’s and boy’s toilets has always favoured the male of the species. That’s because women and girls usually have smaller bladders than their male counterparts, meaning that they need to visit the bathroom more often. And yet, despite all this, girls’ and boys’


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toilet facilities are almost always the same size - which can result in inordinately long queues for girls at peak footfall times. What better place to start levelling the playing field than in our schools? Installing unisex bathrooms in our


schools and colleges would be an easy way of establishing so-called ‘line equality’ - and it would also make life far easier for


Advice on standards for


N recent years, our schools have made enormous progress with regards to gender parity; but we’re still lagging


transgender students to boot. With issues surrounding gender reassignment coming increasingly to the fore, we all need to ask ourselves: are we doing enough to accommodate our transgender pupils? The Equality Act 2010 states that it is


unlawful to treat pupils unfairly on the basis that they have undergone gender reassignment - and while the law doesn’t say anything about toilets specifically, installing a unisex bathroom would be a way of avoiding any potential legal pitfalls as the issue becomes more prominent in public life. That said, in places where unisex school


bathrooms have already been introduced, they have often met fierce opposition from parents. When Buxton School in Leytonstone, east London, opened unisex toilet facilities, a petition against it rapidly gained over 1,000 signatories; if you do decide on the enlightened route, you may wish to sound out parents before you do anything too drastic. Many schools also have to cater to a


school premises •There should be facilities for handwashing near every toilet


•All bathrooms must be adequately lit and ventilated


•They must be installed in locations that are easy to access by pupils and easy to monitor by members of staff, without compromising pupils’ privacy


large proportion of Muslim students. The purification ritual of Wudu is an essential part of the Muslim creed, but most schools and colleges fail to provide adequate provisions for it to be performed. In order to make life easier for your


Muslim students, you may find it useful to install Wudu foot washing facilities in your school or college. Wudu foot wash stations are composed of a drainage channel, foot grid and push button operated time-flow tap, and come in one-, two- and three- person configurations. The sad fact is that school toilet


facilities all too often fail to satisfy the minimum requirements, let alone special considerations. Recent research from the


educationdab.co.uk 31


Bog Standard campaign suggests that 40% of secondary school pupils think the toilets in their schools are too dirty to use. With that in mind, here are the main


recommendations on school toilets as set out by the two main advisory documents: the Toilets in Schools Guidance from the Department for Education and Skills, and the Advice for Standards on School Premises from the Department for Education - See boxes.


www.school-toilets.co.uk


The toilets in


schools guidance •Wash troughs are preferable to individual basins because they are ‘more visually pleasing, easier to keep clean, and reduce the risk of intentional flooding by pupils’


•Trough urinals should be avoided, since they can contribute to ‘shy bladder syndrome’


•To ensure aural privacy, background noise in the bathroom should be increased to 55db


•Bathrooms should be installed opposite staff rooms and offices so that they can be passively inspected


•Every toilet block should have a wheelchair-accessible cubicle, as well as an ambulant cubicle


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