New Holland Park school

Hated school toilets - smelly and cold, being outside the main school building. This probably accounted for my legendary ability to 'hold it'.

The satellite campus of my last school which was built only a few years ago, had no separate staff loos - staff and students used the same (but separate male and female) and it resulted in no graffiti, vandalism or damage of any sort. It also meant that students never knew if there was a teacher in there, so no (or less) risk of bullying. Friends on the staff said they got used to the idea very quickly and it was much better than "checking" students' loos.

I suppose my convent grammar school had some benefits - the toilets were clean and I don't remember them being used for bullying - what did take place was verbal rather than physical, so it could be done in the classroom or dining room. The daft thing in an all girl, all women teacher school was that there was no access to sanitary towels - you had to find the PE teacher and ask her for one if you started unexpectedly. There was no school nurse and we were never told anything about menstruation. I went on a school history trip when I was about 14 and one girl started her period. You would think she had contracted some terrible disease - all the whispering and deciding who should approach the woman teacher in charge.

I never used the toilets at school as they were scary, dismal, outside places where the bullying girls always hung out and talked loudly about sex and having done 'it' the night before!

Toilets are one of the areas identified as places where much bullying takes place, behind closed doors. Places where teachers don't often venture. The idea is that if they are a) open and b) unisex this will cut down on a) those who chose to bully in these particular areas and b) bullying is usually girl on girl or boy on boy. It doesn't often crosses the genders.
That is not put very well but you get the drift, the thinking behind it. Whether or not it will work in this country I don't know but there is some research from Scandinavian countries I think that says it might.

There is a long article about the new school in The Guardian. It is 'architect designed' - which means it is huge, white and clinical. Google Holland Park School.
The toilet blocks have no doors, just the cubicles. No, I don't understand why making them unisex will stop bullying.

I don't understand about the bullying.

I go sometimes to a restaurant in Manchester that has unisex toilets and I hate them!
I feel very uncomfortable and slightly vulnerable in there!

It was horrible. I was a very insecure teenager and having boys around was awful. The sanitary towel situation was also an issue as the boys tended to know who was menstruating. Whilst that wouldn't bother me now I was brought up in a time when sanitary towels were put into brown paper bags when you bought them in the shop so no one would see them.

Perhaps I was exceptionally sensitive as a teenager but I would have hated to use the lavatory with boys standing outside. I still don't like it when a cafe has only one toilet. Sometimes at school (all girls) somebody would suddenly find they needed a sanitary towel and they could call out to a friend to get one for them. I am sure boys would find that very amusing.

When I was in the sixth form we had unisex toilets and it was purgatory. Even now I hate using the toilet if other people can hear.

How are unisex toilets supposed to prevent bullying? Does bullying take place nowhere else on the school site?

If it does cut bullying then fine. So long as there are cubicles I don't see a problem.