LOO JUST AFLUSH WITH IDEAS
ANN WASON MOORE
Oh, how I love my loo. It is my sanctuary, my place of privacy. Sure it’s the place where s--- happens, but that’s the least of it.
It’s the only room where I can lock the door and be alone without being questioned. Well, questions are still shouted at me (Mum, where’s my hat? Mum, she hit me! Can I hit her?) but I can opt to ignore.
Bathrooms are a magical place where we can go to hide, think or relax.
Well, at home they are. At our schools, it’s a whole different story.
Our students have nothing but the bog standard, and that has to change.
For too long our school bathrooms have had kids down in the dumps, but now there’s a movement to transform our institutional toilets – and, appropriately, it’s starting from the bottom up.
Student welfare advocate and Enlighten Education CEO Dannielle Miller began the School Toilet Project after reading how students often use bathrooms as a place to
self-harm, and wondered how different the outcome would be if these facilities were a place filled with positive messages, a clean and safe atmosphere, and helpful information.
Her project was quickly adopted by child experts and parents alike, but now the grassroots campaign is going viral – thanks to Gold Coast mum Marsha Graham.
This passionate parent, a former P&C president, has spearheaded a closed Facebook group to spark change in our own educational facilities.
Within hours of creating the Champions for School Toilet Transformation (Australia) group, hundreds of parents, principals, teachers, nurses and youth workers joined, including a teacher from Spain, and more than a dozen schools are already working with students to redesign their toilets.
It’s no surprise this project resonates in our city. Late last year the Bulletin reported that students at Helensvale Primary School were being forced to use toilets without doors. While parents reported the problem to the Queensland Government, they could not understand why the problem was not immediately addressed.
After all, this is not a wee issue. School toilets are a sad and scary place, when they could and should be a safe space.
“Ask any teacher and they’ll tell you that whenever they go into the school bathrooms, they find at least one child crying in there, or being comforted by friends,” says Dannielle.
“We decorate our school counsellors’ offices in ways which we know will help elevate mood, yet we give no consideration to the one place we know upset students naturally gravitate to – the school toilets. At the moment, most school toilets are either sterile, or covered in filth.
“I thought someone should do something about this; someone should encourage young people to redesign their toilets so they feel more welcoming and nurturing. In doing so, teens would also be gaining incredible insights into how they can best self-soothe, and learning more about how design and the environment effects their mood. So I decided to be that someone.”
Dannielle says she started her journey by completing a research paper, and she was stunned by what she discovered. There is an urgent need to reimagine school toilets, with our current facilities identified as the focus for bullying, intimidation, selfharm and suicide.
Research, in Australia and abroad, shows students often avoid going to the toilet at school, either because they’re grossed out by the state of the facilities, the lack of privacy or the threat of bullying.
Meanwhile, expenditure on toilets is a low priority for many schools. Dannielle says few governments and school administrations seem to make the connection between the provision of clean, pleasant and safe toilet facilities and children’s short and long-term physical and mental health and learning outcomes.
This is not an isolated problem, either, but one that is occurring internationally.
A survey by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK found children thought their school toilets were “disgusting”, with many not even able to access soap and a number reporting that “bad things” happen in the toilets.
While Dannielle has already received funding from the NSW Department of Education to trial her toilet project at a high school in North West Sydney, other students, parents and schools are now recognising the value of this project – and thanks to Gold Coast mum Marsha, they can turn to the Facebook “toilet trust” for ideas.
There’s no doubt that the majority of our schools have a long wish list and a short budget, but creating bathrooms that can be a sanctuary, that can benefit our children physically, mentally and emotionally, should be priority number one.
Loving your loo should not be a luxury.
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