VB: bog standard – Involver

The following are emails that are sent to the Bog Standard campaign.

BOG Standard factsheet

What Pupils can do

This factsheet talks about survey forms, petition forms, letters, posters and factsheets. These can all be found at www.bog-standard.org

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 from the Bog Standard website. As well as pupils, why don’t you ask cleaners and staff what they think too?

Present your results to the school (pupils, 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.

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 the 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 to your teacher.

Use your school council

Ask your school council to make the issue of school toilets a priority. Give them factsheets from the Information section of the Bog Standard website 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! You can find petitions on the Pupils’ section of the Bog Standard website. (See below.)

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.

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.

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 from the Information section of the website about water, toilets and health if you like. Ask them to write letters or speak to the headteacher. (See below.)

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/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 on good toilet design from the Information section of Bog Standard’s website.

Print off a poster

You can get a poster from the Pupils’ section of the Bog Standard website. You can also print off the Bog Standard charter from the Information section. Make sure you ask permission before you put your poster up. If you don’t, it will just get taken down again.

Organise a petition

Make a petition saying that the people who sign it want their toilets improved. There are two petition forms, one for improving the toilets and the other asking to be able to use the toilets when you need to on the Pupils’ section of the Bog Standard website. Ask other pupils to sign your petition. It is most effective if lots of people sign it, rather than just a few. This shows that the toilets are affecting lots of people.

Write letters

The adults’ section of the Bog Standard website 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.)

Support your case with facts

The Information section of the Bog Standard website has a lot of factsheets. These explain why good toilets are so important to keep children 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.

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:

* write to the school for you, if you give them your school’s address. Don’t worry – they won’t reveal your name!
* write to your Local Education Authority
* help you write to your head teacher, your Local Education Authority or Board of Governors

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

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.

You can telephone us on 0117 960 3060.

You can e-mail info@bogstandard.org.

You can write to us at:

ERIC
34 Old School House
Britannia Road
Kingswood
Bristol
BS15 8DB

As we don’t have any funding for a toolkit shall we have a toilet special in next terms Voicebox or a feature on the website – we clearly need to do something to help these guys!

Maybe we can put together some advice on an email that feeds into a resource in the next magazine. We could ask them to keep a blog of their progress with photos of before and after etc.

The following are emails that are sent to the Bog Standard campaign. As we don’t have any funding for a toolkit shall we have a toilet special in next terms Voicebox or a feature on the website – we clearly need to do something to help these guys!

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I have copied and pasted just a few of the emails from students where they are asking for help. Could you think about what we should be saying to students to help them? I always write a personal reply (when they give me their email address, which they do when they ask for help) but it would be really helpful if we could put together a practical step by step guide for students, which could form the core of a toolkit for students. You and your team might have some other ideas rather then my usual ones?

I’d be really grateful for this. A draft that we refine and add to amongst the organisations would be fine.

Nickie

hi, i am on the year 9 council and also on the overall school council (there are only 10 of us on the school council) we have decided to try and bump up the toilets, we have has loads of complaints about the state of them but we need advice on doing that, my thought is that it is a waste of money, they will just get trashed again. we need advice, Help (Mark, age 13)

Our toilets are disgusting! With doors hanging off, no running hot water and no soap. As a school councillor, I am very concerned about the health of the students using the toilets. The toilets do not flush, people smoke in there, and peek over when you are inside a cubical. The flooring is all curled up and there is no toilet paper so basically the toilet is rendered useless!
Please feel free to contact me via email to help sort the mess out
Thank you very much! Matt (age 13)

The year 7s and year 8s share about 5 toilets (5 for girls and 5 for boys) and then the year 9s and year 10s and year 11s share about 5 toilets again (5 for girls and 5 for boys). The 6th form have a block with 5 toilets in (5 for girls and 5 for boys). The toilets have faulty locks and there is lots of toilet paper on the ceiling. There is also lots of graffiti on the cubicle walls. There is a hot water tap but no hot water comes out and there are soap dispensers but there is never any soap in them. There isn’t much toilet roll and the hand dryers give out a tiny bit of cold air. We don’t have any sanitary towel dispensers but we do have proper bins to put our tampons and pads in. Bullying often happens in the toilets but smoking doesn’t as there are smoke alarms. Lots of people used to try and avoid lessons by hiding in the toilets but now members of staff check them during lesson times. We can’t go during lesson times except if we ask but the teachers nearly always say no and how we should have gone at break time. The toilets smell and get very crowded as there is only 10 between each two or three year groups (girls and boys). I really want to improve the standards of the toilets but I don’t know who to talk to and I don’t want to look stupid. (age 13)

our toilets are horrible. they smell they don’t have enough toilet roll or sanitary bins. our toilets haven’t been painted in a long time. our business management class is trying to solve our problems but we need a lot of ideas. please help us (Kerri, age 14)

At my school nobody likes the toilets. As I am on the student council we are going to try and make them slightly more attractive. Can you suggest any ways which would be suitable? We have tried new mirrors but they get damaged and graffiti covers the walls quicker than the paint dries on them!! (Gemma,age 14)

Oh my word, where can I start. The toilets here at M__ are terrible, the locks are broken and the boys open the doors and look at you. PLEASE publish this so people coming to M__ know what’s ahead of them. PLEASE help. (Bev, age 15)

Our school toilets are horrible. There is poop sitting in the bottom of them. Plus there is graffiti all over the walls. There are no seats on any of the toilets. There is never any loo roll and there is chewing gum all over the place.There are loads of older students in there smoking and they scare me. What can I do about it? (Keon, age 11)

Our school toilets are either unbearable to go into or locked. During lesson time you have to ask permission to use the toilets, which is reasonable, but there is only one toilet open, monitered by a ‘Toilet Lady’. This one is clean, but only because it’s locked most of the time. I purpously don’t drink much, or nothing in school to stop me from going to the toilets, or asking for a permission slip, which is quite embarrassing, wouldn’t you agree? If we spend 6 hours or more a day, five days a week in school then shouldn’t some water be consumed within those 6 hours (which is a long time). I am the Year 10 representative in our school council, and I am determined for the health rules and regulations to be enforced in our school toilets, and that water should be consumed within class time. I have set this goal for myself, which I will achieve, hopefully with your help. Our school NEEDS you, our toilets NEED you! (Victoria, age 14)

Here at ___ Academy in Kent, we have cameras in both the boys and girls toilets. We are unable to use the toilets during lesson times. During break and lunch there are always yobs messing around in there, there are no locks on the doors, there’s usually toilet paper, but the camera makes me feel uneasy when using the toilets. After school the toilets are locked, so you have to wait till you get home. The teachers have their own nice clean toilets, but some teachers use ours, are they allowed to do that? There are two small toilets for the boys in our school, one has the camera in it, and the other is extremely old fashioned, with rotting wood, no door locks and no toilet lid. So I’m always in a dilemma over which toilet to use. Our school has over 1300 students in it, and only 2 boys toilets. I think something should be done. Please help. (Joshua, age 15)

Nickie Brander
Campaigns Organiser
ERIC (Education and Resources for Improving Childhood Continence)

Campaign websites:
HYPERLINK “http://www.wateriscoolinschool.org.uk/”www.wateriscoolinschool.org.uk Improving drinking water for pupils
HYPERLINK “http://www.bog-standard.org/”www.bog-standard.org Better toilets for pupils

Direct Contact Details:
HYPERLINK “mailto:nickie@brander.org.uk”nickie@brander.org.uk
Tel 01252 781382
Address: Longhurst, Long Hill, The Sands, Farnham, Surrey, GU10 1NG

ERIC (Education and Resources for Improving Childhood Continence) is a registered charity (no.1002424) and a company limited by guarantee (no.2580579) registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 34 Old School House, Britannia Road, Kingswood, Bristol BS15 8DB.