Teachers’, parents’ and pupils’ perceptions and described experiences of toilet provisions and practices within English schools

Abstract

This article explores teachers’, parents’ and pupils’ perceptions and described experiences of school toilet policies, provisions and practices within state-funded primary (5-11 years) and secondary (11-16 years) schools in England. In doing so, this research critically examines how school-specific policies and toilet provisions influence children’s and young people’s use of toilets at school and identifies issues which pupils must navigate within this heavily tabooed space. Seeking to portray a range of perspectives, we present data generated through three mixed-method surveys completed by 96 schoolteachers, 158 parents, and 198 secondary school pupils. Adopting an overarching wide-angled lens, we combine descriptive statistics with thematic analysis to detail similarities and nuances of parents’, teachers’ pupils’ perceptions around (a) accessibility to school toilets, (b) problematic pupil behaviour, (c) provision quality. The different perspectives offered provide a wide-angled lens which allows for a wider dialogue between pupils, parents and teachers. Our key findings underscore the need for standardised, equity-focused guidelines that address both infrastructural inadequacies and behavioural dynamics