Girls must ask for lavatory paper at Muslim school

A MUSLIM girls’ school has received the lowest Ofsted rating available after inspectors discovered that pupils were not provided with lavatory paper, for “cultural reasons”.

Staff at the fee-paying Park Avenue Girls’ High School, in Stoke-on-trent, said paper was available from the school office, but because most of the students were Asian, they preferred to wash rather than wipe.

However, some of the girls told inspectors they were so unhappy about the situation that they avoided using the lavatory all day.

The school, which was visited by inspectors in October, was rated “inadequate”, with the report identifying a range of concerns, including safeguarding problems and the discovery of sectarian material on the premises.

The Ofsted report stated: “At the time of the inspection, it was not the school’s common practice to provide soap for pupils’ hand-washing, toilet roll in the toilets or suitable drinking water.

“Toilet paper is available from the school office when pupils request it.

‘Pupils told inspectors that they sometimes avoided using toilets for the whole school day because of this’

Pupils told inspectors that they sometimes avoided using toilets for the whole school day because of this.”

Abdul Ghafoor Salloo, the head teacher, defended the policy, insisting that the school catered for the cultural needs of the pupils.

The head said: “The children they do use the toilets and traditionally, because we are Asian, we wash, not only wipe. There are facilities for pupils to clean themselves. Some pupils, they avoid using toilets because they don’t like going in there.”

The head added: “There are facilities for cleaning yourself in the toilet – it might be hard for someone who doesn’t traditionally wash to understand and washing is better than wiping clean. The inspector said there has to be toilet rolls, we said there are always toilet rolls but they are not always out – so what?”

Inspectors also criticised the fact there were no shower facilities available at the school, which has 34 pupils aged between 11 and 16.

In addition the report stated: “Inspectors found published sectarian material in a storeroom behind the school office. They made the head teacher aware of this. The head teacher explained that he was not aware of how the materials came to be in school.”