Best value of available school resources can be enhanced by heading to the toilet.
So claims Closomat, Britain’s leading provider of accessible hygiene.
The claim follows National Education Union research indicating the number of children with special needs has increased by more than 1/3 in less than five years, up to 320,00. Further, research shows £11m/ 1million hours each year is spent by teachers cleaning up children after they’ve used school toilets, just in primary schools.
The Government has allocated £7.4b to maintain & improve school buildings since 2015. In the past six months, it has allocated a further £400m for what it terms ‘small capital projects’ and specifically itemised toilets under that heading.
Elaborates Robin Tuffley, Closomat marketing manager, “Evidence shows that lack of suitable toilet facilities impacts on the health & wellbeing of pupils and staff. It affects pupils’ ability to learn. Suitable toilets, that children feel happy to use, can help achieve better value and use of resources. With the ever growing number of children with special needs, toilets that enable them to develop basic life skills, and be clean, are more important than ever.
“Equally, ensuring that appropriate facilities, such as hygiene rooms, are in place for dealing with the whole range of toileting issues- from helping pupils with special needs through to cleaning after accidents- has a positive impact on people and resources. The Department for Education’s own guidelines say it is better to have fewer, but better equipped toilets.”
Closomat has produced a white paper to help schools get it right.
‘Considerations & Specification of Assisted Accessible Toilet Facilities in Educational Buildings’ in one place covers the key elements of the revised Building Bulletin 104, and BS8300:2018. It enables specifiers to easily cross-reference their specifications and designs to ensure appropriate compliance on accessibility and special needs. It can be downloaded from Closomat’s website www.closomat.co.uk.
In addition, Closomat offers an innovative project management service, whereby it can survey, provide design advice, supply, install, and commission assisted accessible WCs, hygiene rooms and Changing Places, to ensure anyone using the school who has special needs, or who supports someone with needs, has an appropriate space, with appropriate equipment, to enable dignified, independent, hygienic and safe intimate hygiene.
Closomat is believed to be the only specialist provider of assisted toilet solutions that is fully CDM compliant. Its credentials, amassed over almost 60 years of meeting the toilet needs of disabled people, include accessible toilet provision at educational establishments as diverse as Rose Hill Primary School Stockport, North East Campus Dundee, Kingsweston School Bristol, a raft of Cornwall mainstream schools, to Cambridge University.