Overview

• A Parentkind survey of 2,000 parents shows about one in six children avoid using school toilets, with 18% suffering constipation and 16% wetting themselves to avoid dirty facilities.
• Parents report children encountering cockroaches in cubicles and human waste on walls, and nearly 40% of parental complaints to schools elicited no remedial action.
• Eleven percent of parents say their children have asked to miss or stay home from school due to worries over the state of toilet facilities.
• Parentkind chief executive Jason Elsom and ASCL general secretary Pepe Di'Iasio are urging ministers to ring-fence part of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s new £4.7 billion annual school infrastructure budget for toilet cleaning and modernisation.
• Secondary pupils are more likely to avoid toilets at school (39%) than primary pupils (27%), highlighting the breadth of hygiene concerns across age groups.