Eight out of ten students prefer to hold back for hours rather than go to the toilet at school or college. Tested in certain establishments, mixed toilets appear to be a solution.
The Albert Camus college in Rosny-sous-Bois, in the Paris region, abandoned its old toilets last May to test a new device: mixed toilets, installed in a prefabricated building in heart of the playground. Here, no more separation between girls and boys, but by level. A configuration which reassures certain students who, until now, sometimes held back for a long time before daring to enter the cabin.
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For some little ones, the change is still a little fresh: “Girls and boys are mixed together, it’s a bit awkward, but we’ll get used to it !” But for the principal, based on the observation that too many students were avoiding the school toilets, it was urgent.
“It has medical consequences, such as urinary infections. And then also direct consequences on learning: a student who refrains from going to the toilet, how available will he be for the math test that will follow? “
Julien Dagneaux, principalat franceinfo
Separate levels, rather than genres
How to make children go to the toilet better? The principal surveys his students and understands that what stops these little middle school students from going to the toilet is above all the fact of being around adults. “There were groups of fourth graders in front of the toilets before… So I wasn’t very comfortable going in or out. It was intimidating!” explains one of them. “For example, the last time I passed here, some fourth and third graders looked at us strangely, they made dog noises just because we’re so little…”, continues another.
The new toilets are therefore separated by level, and no longer by gender. The right block, for the 6th-5th grades, and the left one for the older ones, the 4th-3rd grades. A more environment serene for the students : “and then the thing that I like is that the doors cover the entire cabin: there is no space underneath“, describes a middle school student.
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When diversity rhymes with cleanliness
Until last spring, the college only had six toilets for nearly 600 students. There are now 18 in total. “There, there is nothing to say, we go into the toilet and it is clean, there is soap”, notes a student. By all accounts, the now mixed place has even improved in cleanliness. The headmaster himself had to get rid of the idea that boys dirty more : “It was the schoolgirls who told me ‘Girls are disgusting too, sir!’ So I also had some shots in mind!”
Of course, not everyone is completely comfortable yet, especially when it comes to the subject of periods: “It’s a bit embarrassing for them,” says a schoolboy. Innovation, that said, on this occasion: trash cans were installed in these mixed toilets. And even if reluctance persists, they are gradually finding their audience within the college.
Schools still have mixed toilets: report by Agathe Mahuet