Parents have piled in after a mum accused a secondary school in Cornwall of not looking out for its pupils when it was said to have locked all of its toilet facilities aside from five disabled cubicles.
Claire Foley, whose daughter attends Richard Lander School in Truro, was not impressed and said the decision was made during GCSE mock exams being carried out last week. It came at a time when the school should have been “supporting” the already nervous pupils, Ms Foley said.
She noted the closure of all the toilet facilities, which happened during lesson time and not during breaks, went directly against the Department for Education’s standards for school premises which detail that one toilet should be available per 20 pupils – a total of 76 for the school’s current capacity of more than 1,500.
Ms Foley, who is an independent therapist and works with children, teens, parents and teaching staff, said that instead, just a handful were open throughout the week.
She continued: “The school closed all toilet facilities and had five single occupancy cubicles available in the whole school to cater for its 1,508 pupils.
“More toilets were available during break times but in lessons and changeover times the students had access to only five toilets. Not only is this in contravention of the government health and safety rules for adults at work, it goes against the Department for Education’s advice.”
She said she was furious to hear from her daughter, who is a Year 11 pupil, that the toilets being used were also designated disabled toilets.
“So I am not sure how students with additional needs were being catered for at this time,” she added.
“There were queues of pupils waiting to use the toilets and staff even put chairs out for those waiting. Some pupils missed lesson times due to waiting for the toilet facilities, a fact which flies in the face of the narrative which is perpetually pushed of ‘attendance is key’.”
She was concerned for any students who may have already been worried or anxious and wanted to use lesson changeover times to use the toilet rather than breaks.
She added: “Not to mention menstruating young women having to share facilities with 11-year-old boys who may still be practicing their aim, alongside those who may suffer with gut-related poor health (which is often a symptom of anxiety) and need privacy and urgency.”
She said no parents were made aware of this happening and there was no information on the Richard Lander website or any email or text communications with carers. Venting her frustrations online, several other parents came forward to say they too were not impressed.
One seemed to think the toilets were closed as a result of pupils vaping in the toilets. They said it “seems crazy then to stop people from normal functions due to some people breaking rules” while another said their child became “really stressed about it”.
A third said her child found urine all over the seat when she eventually got her turn. “That did no favours for her anxiety,” she wrote.
The Department for Education does state in a 2015 document on its ‘Advice on Standards for School Premises’ that one toilet per 20 students for those over the age of eight is recommended. It also states: “Separate toilet facilities for boys and girls aged eight years or over must be provided except where the toilet facility is provided in a room that can be secured from the inside and that is intended for use by one pupil at a time.”
Richard Lander School has been contacted for comment but has not responded to the concerns.
