Recently, there was an incident in the Woodfarm high schools toilets which resulted in damages due to vandalism. Rather than trying to find out who was responsible for this, punishing the whole school, the head faculty have taken the decision to lock the toilets between lessons.

This same thing happened at Williamwood high when Nicola Macglashan locked the toilets to stop “bad behaviour”, which is exactly what is happening here. It is ridiculous, and a breach of our basic human rights. One gender neutral toilet and one or two disabled toilets is not enough to accommodate a school of 800+ pupils, not to mention there are no female sanitary products in the only two available toilets.

It’s a ridiculous rule, aside from the other unnecessary rules the Woodfarm head faculty has put in place recently, such as not permitting us to leave the school with our PE kits on when having PE last period, forcing us to wear blazers when walking in the corridors and in communal areas, even during hot summer days and not allowing us to wear jackets over our blazers during the winter, the list goes on. 

This head faculty is obsessed with control and being in control of young people, and it needs to stop. Give us back our toilets, and our basic human rights. We’re here to be educated, not controlled and dictated to. This is a school, not a prison, and the senior leadership team need to stop operating by their ego and start leading by example.