Clinton Rogers: Are school standards really improving?

Beware old people (yes, I know I am) pontificating: “It wasn’t like that in my day.”

But the reality is that it wasn’t.

The question is whether changes represent a social advancement, adapting to modern trends, or whether they point to a clear degradation of those standards.

What has prompted this article is conversations I have had with young people, including my own grandchildren, about school life.

It came as a huge surprise to me that many schools now have unisex toilets.

I guess my view on that has to be influenced by my age and my personal background.

Would I like that now if I were a father of a teenage girl?

Almost certainly not.

But am I just being old, applying standards of 50 years ago to school life now?

Many parents I have spoken to have expressed similar reservations (so I am not alone).

They seem equally concerned when they hear their children describe shared banks of cubicles, next to communal wash areas.

It leads me to question the legal picture, and what I have discovered is that under the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012, schools are still required to provide separate toilet facilities for boys and girls over the age of eight, unless those toilets are fully self-contained, lockable rooms designed for one pupil at a time.

In other words, the rise of so-called “unisex” provision is not, in itself, unlawful.

But nor does it replace the obligation for single-sex facilities.

Confused?

But why the change to shared facilities in the first place?

I have read some school leaders saying it is good for preventing bullying.

Open wash areas, they argue, discourage bad behaviour while preserving privacy in individual cubicles.

Whether that reassurance lands with parents, particularly of teenage girls, is another matter entirely.

And that may be why newer schools are being built with fully enclosed, lockable single toilet rooms (bet the queue for those is long!)

Anyway, if you think that’s confusing, how exactly am I supposed to react when I hear that schools are tolerating 'furries,' children identifying as animals?

I’m told it is happening in schools in Somerset but in truth I have yet to see the evidence.

Social media often exaggerates stories of schools accommodating pupils as animals, even tolerating them wearing fake tails.

Yet I have no reason to doubt those telling me these stories locally.

Welcome to the 21st century!

Schools today, like society in general, are navigating complex terrain around identity, inclusion, and safeguarding.

I’m just pleased I’m not at school any longer!