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School toilets, globally, have been sites of bullying, vandalism and embarrassment, and, more recently, have been at the centre of equalities debates (see for example Lundblad et al., 2010). In this blog post we report on our multi-faceted research project, which explores school toilet provision and practices within English schools. Our central aim is to provide more equitable and safe school toilet experiences for all. We collected data via three national surveys completed by 96 teachers, 158 parents and 198 pupils.

Exploring experiences of school toilets

Respondents in all groups (teachers, parents and pupils) raised issues around restricted access to toilets within school time, insanitary conditions, poor pupil behaviour and inadequate menstrual support. There were concerns that these problems impact the physical and mental wellbeing of pupils.

Teachers reported how pupils are often ‘worried about going for a poo’, ‘worried about older children in there’ and ‘unwilling to go to the toilet and held for most of the day due to embarrassment’. Parents complained that their children avoided toilet use in school: ‘refuses to use them and did in junior [primary] school too – will go all day without using the bathroom’.

All groups highlighted problematic sanitary provision for menstruating pupils. Some parents reported: ‘often the sanitary bins are overflowing. There have been clouds of flies in the sanitary bins.’ Pupils reported that often gender-neutral toilets were missing sanitary bins which is unhelpful for menstruating gender diverse pupils.

Time constraints on toileting were highlighted by all stakeholders, with teachers suggesting policies were hard to implement, and pupils describing a real lack of time to access provision. One pupil reported: ‘you have time at break only. Not lunch because you only have five minutes to eat anyway after queuing and you can’t go in-between lessons as we only get three minutes. You also can’t go in lessons.’ It was clear from all surveys that there is no consistent practice regarding access, an issue compounded by no clear guidance.

Regular toilet usage is essential for physical health and there is evidence that restricting toilet use in schools is impacting on children’s health (see Jørgensen et al., 2021). Furthermore, survey responses reveal that school toilet policy unfairly impacts girls and gender diverse pupils who are menstruating and unable to access the toilet in a timely manner to change their sanitary wear, as well as students with bowel and bladder issues. All students need to access toilets more frequently than others but also need to be afforded dignity rather than embarrassment when doing so. We argue that it is essential to improve school toilet policy and practice.

‘All students need to access toilets more frequently than others but also need to be afforded dignity rather than embarrassment when doing so.’

School toilets: The bottom line of social justice

Significantly, our study demonstrates the commonalities between the parents, teachers and pupils in perspectives and common struggles with toilets and toilet policies. Pupils understood that policies needed to be in place, yet struggled to be heard within school about how time constraints and consideration of menstruation were impacting them:

There is usually a lot of crowding around the toilets, especially [at] lunch so people feel embarrassed or intimidated to use the toilets. Students have around five minutes to go to the toilet before we are told by staff to leave the corridors – this can be uncomfortable [especially for female students] after waiting a couple of lessons or more to access a toilet.

This reinforces the importance of our wider project, in which we encourage dialogue and listening to the evidence from different sides, to enable wider effective improvement (see Haines Lyon et al., 2024). In the future we will be working with undergraduate students to continue projects in English schools, and we hope to work with schools and education policymakers to develop more equitable toilet guidelines.

This blog post is based on the article by Matthew Green, Charlotte Haines Lyon, Alice Little and Jamie Telford, published by the British Educational Research Journal.

This research has been kindly supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy.

References

Green, M. J., Haines Lyon, C., Little, A., & Telford, J. (2025). Teachers’, parents’, and pupils’ perceptions and described experiences of toilet provisions and practices within English schools. British Educational Research Journal. Advance online publication.

Haines Lyon, C., Little, A., Dobson, E., Glover, O., Patterson, J., Telford, J., & Noret, N. (2024). Toilet talk: Using a student as researchers approach to problematize and co-construct school toilet policy and practice. Gender and Education, 36(7), 801–816.

Jørgensen, C. S., Breinbjerg, A. S., Rittig, S., &  Kamperis, K. (2021). Dissatisfaction with school toilets is associated with bladder and bowel dysfunction. European Journal of Pediatrics, 180, 3317–3324.

Lundblad, B., Hellström, A-L., & Berg, M. (2010). Children’s experiences of attitudes and rules for going to the toilet in school: Rules for going to toilet in school. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 24(2), 219–223.