Recently the rules in my school regarding pupil access to toilet facilities has been changed, and frankly, I do not think is right. The rule is currently that during lessons, all pupil bathrooms are locked, bar three single disabled bathrooms. Glenlola admission numbers are approximately 1000 pupils; this means we have less than 1 toilet per 300 pupils. While I understand there is no explicit minimum requirement for how many toilets a school should have per pupil, the DfE ‘Advice on standards for school premises’ gives an example that “for pupils over 11 one toilet per 20 pupils would be sufficient.” What we at Glenlola are experiencing is far beyond that guidance. The same DfE advise letter states that all bathrooms should be “adequately ventilated and lit;” however in my school, there is a sign in one of the bathrooms saying in no uncertain terms “there is no ventilation here”, furthermore, the latter part of that sign says “use this loo only to pee” which I find utterly ridiculous. Overall, these bathrooms are unsanitary, the bins are overflowing with paper towels, not to mention the risk of COVID-19 with over 1000 pupils touching the same surfaces (in a room with no ventilation) for over 5 hours of the day. 

This petition aims to persuade Glenlola's senior leadership team, and Board of Governors to reopen all pupil bathrooms in order to prevent missing out on upwards of 20 minutes of class time in queuing to use the bathroom, and alleviate humiliation caused to students as young as 11.