Are your school toilets really horrible?

Are you not allowed to go when you really need to?

Do you often wait until you get home to go to the toilet?

If so, this section is for you!

Find out what other pupils think

Do a survey (asking people what they think about the toilets). You can make your own survey form or use one of ours. There’s a survey form for you to ask the questions and a survey form for people to fill in anonymously. (The links will open the forms in a new window and you can print them off). As well as pupils, why don't you ask cleaners and staff what they think too?

We have two other questionnaires (surveys) you may prefer to use. These are from Medway Youth Parliament who surveyed lots of schools in their area. There is one to survey pupils and another to survey staff. You can use either or both of them. You can survey several schools in your area (like Medway Youth Parliament did) or use them in your school only. You can ask the questions or you can ask people to fill in the questionnaires on their own. You can see a summary of Medway's survey results on our website here.

Present your results to the headteacher and governors. You can also suggest some recommendations (changes) that you feel are reasonable and achievable. Here are some suggestions that Medway made: checking and cleaning the toilets more than once a day; redecorating the toilets (you could make some suggestions); sanitary bins in all girls' cubicles; privacy partitions between urinals; include toilet hygiene and behaviour issues in PSHE or Citizenship lessons; staff training to deal with toilet requests in a discreet and understanding way; an indoor social area for pupils who don't want to be outside during breaks; recommend the school adopts the School Toilet Charter.

Be sure to tell the school how the pupils will do their bit to help improve the toilets and help maintain them. Perhaps the School Council could suggest a pupil's Code of Conduct. These could be things like flushing the toilets after use, not wasting toilet paper, respecting privacy, reporting problems to the school office (they could keep a book you write in), not hanging around in the toilets. This will make the staff more willing to help you get better toilets.

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Encourage other pupils to look after the toilets

Pupils are more likely to listen to each other than to teachers. Use class meetings, registration time or assemblies to get the message across. Ask your teachers if you can talk about the toilets in your PSHE or Citizenship lessons too. You could make posters to put up in the toilets (make sure you have spares in case they need replacing). Your headteacher may help too – for example, by setting the pupils a challenge to keep the toilets clean, then awarding a prize, or promising to redecorate.

Prepare a list of your ideas on how the toilets can be improved and show what you’ll do to keep them nice.

Set an example yourself! Make sure you always flush the loo, wash your hands properly, and don't hang around in there.

Don’t join in silly pranks either, such as toilet tissue bombs or writing on walls. They make the toilets horrible for others to use, make a lot of extra work for your site manager - and encourage the teachers to think you don’t deserve decent toilets. If you find others are spoiling the toilets, you could ask your form teacher to talk about respecting the toilets and each other. You can ask your teacher when no one else is around. Or you can write a note.

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Use your school council

Ask your school council to make the issue of school toilets a priority. Give them factsheets showing that bad toilets can be very unhealthy. You can also organise a petition to support your case. A petition will show that lots of pupils in your school are unhappy with the toilets, not just you!

If you don’t have a school council, get a group of you together and ask for a meeting with the headteacher. It’s a good idea if you can get a house captain, prefect or head boy/girl (if you have one) to support you.

Visit www.schoolcouncils.org for more about school councils.

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Improve the toilets You can ask your school council to work on improving the toilets. This can be improvements like repainting the toilets, new colourful toilet seats, and new locks on doors. It can also work on improving pupil behaviour in the toilets. It can also set up a rota of pupils who check the toilets a couple of times a day to make sure there is enough toilet paper, soap and towels and to report any problems. School council members usually change quite often, so it may be best to set up a separate group to work on the school toilets. Otherwise things might not get finished and everybody gets fed up. Include a couple of school council members, but you may have to add or change them when new school councilors are elected. It’s also a good idea to get a few enthusiastic adults on the group too. You could ask teachers, governors, caretakers, and parents. If your school has a school nurse you could ask her/him too - ask the school office to give you their contact details. If you want to do something really ambitious like redesigning the toilets, you’ll definitely need lots of adult help – and money! Some groups also run fund-raising events to get extra money to help pay for improvements. Kings’ Comprehensive School in Winchester ran a year-long Toilet Challenge and Toilets in Need appeal. The whole school raised money to help enable the toilets to be demolished, redesigned and built to the pupils’ specifications. They did this through a series of events including a table top sale. Back to top

Ofsted inspections

Your school is inspected about every three years by inspection teams from Ofsted. When Ofsted inspectors visit your school they should have a meeting with your school council or other pupils’ forum. This is a great opportunity to mention the school toilets!

The school council can also ask the inspectors to inspect the toilets. The toilets might have been tidied up a bit for the inspection, but they’ll still get the general picture if they follow their nose!

If drinking water facilities are a problem in your school, or pupils regularly can’t get a drink of water when they want one, be sure to mention this too.

Ask your parents and carers to mention the toilets (and drinking water) in a short questionnaire that Ofsted will give them.

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Talk to whoever looks after you

Lots of adults don’t realise how horrible school toilets can be. Tell your mum, dad or carer about your school toilets. Explain what effects the problem has. For example, if the door doesn’t have a lock, you don’t like to go to the toilet. Tell them that this is very bad for your health. You can give them a factsheet about water, toilets and health if you like. Ask them to write letters or speak to the headteacher.

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Talk to the headteacher

Like your parents, your headteacher might not realise how bad your school toilets are. S/he might never have been in them. Once you have done your survey, ask for a meeting with the headteacher and explain the problems. You could even take him or her on a tour of the toilets.

When you ask for changes, be clear about what you, and the other pupils, want. Remember that your school might not have much money to spend on toilets. It would be helpful if you suggest some solutions to your headteacher. You can print off a list of suggestions for good toilet design from our factsheets section.

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Print off a poster

Click here to open the printable poster. You can also print off the Bog Standard charter. Make sure you ask permission before you put your poster up. If you don’t, it will just get taken down again.

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Organise a petition

Make a petition form, or use one of ours. There’s a petition form for improving the toilets and a petition form asking to be allowed to go to the toilet when you need to. The links will open the forms in a new window, and you can print them off. Ask other pupils to sign your petition. Your petition is most effective if lots of people sign it, rather than just a few. This shows that the toilets are affecting lots of people.

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Write letters

The adults’ section of this site has a page of lobby letters to print off and post. You can also email them. A lobby letter is one that asks someone in charge to change things.

You can write or email the lobby letters yourself if you like – just make sure you read the tips on writing a good lobby letter before you do. If you’re not used to writing lobby letters, you might want to ask your mum, dad or carer to help you or write one for you. A group of pupils could write to the school governors. There’s an example on the lobby letter page. (Don’t forget your headteacher will see this letter.)

You can also write a letter to your local MP and ask him/her to write a letter to your school. You can add in your letter, “The teachers don’t listen to us.” Don’t know who your MP is? Write ToThem.com tells you who your MP is and lets you email them too.

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Support your case with facts

This site has a lot of factsheets. You can find them all on one page (Printable Factsheets) in the Adults’ Site Area. These explain why good toilets are so important to keep children and young people healthy. You can print off whichever factsheet you need, and give it to your parents or teachers when you tell them about your toilets. You will be taken a lot more seriously if you can support your case with facts.

There are some factsheets written for children and young people:

• What pupils can do
• Problems with school toilets (for pupils)
• Healthy bladders and bowels (for pupils and young people)
• Glossary (a list of what toilet and health terms mean)

There are some factsheets written for adults which you can give to your parents or teachers

• Health problems associated with poor toilets (this explains the medical reasons why nice toilets are important and why it's important that you can go to the toilet when you need to)
• Facilities and Access Guidelines (this explains to teachers why good toilets and going to the toilet when you need to are important for your health and learning)

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Email the Children’s Commissioner

You can write to one of the offices of the Children's Commissioners - it's their job to help children with problems just like yours. They don't have the powers to force a school to change, but they can:

If you are in Wales Email post@childcomwales.org.uk
If you are in Northern Ireland Email yourshout@niccy.org.
If you are in Scotland Email info@sccyp.org.uk
If you are you in England Email support@childrenscommissioner.org

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Talk to us

Tell Bog Standard about your toilets and toilet rules. Send us photos too! We can then tell people like politicians that lots of pupils have to use horrible toilets or can’t go to the toilet when they need to. If we have a lot of pupils telling us about their problems, it means we can prove to everyone that school toilets are very important to lots of people.

We want to hear good stories too! Are you proud of your school toilets? Have you helped to turn your nasty toilets into nice toilets? Does your school let you out of lessons to use the toilets when you need to? If yes, tell us about your toilets, what you like about them and send us photos. Be sure to tell us the name of your school and where it is, so they can shine in glory!

You can contact us through our feedback form or using the details on the contact page.

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