An independent Muslim all-girls school has been rated as inadequate after Ofsted inspectors discovered children avoided using the lavatory because they have to ask for toilet paper.
An Ofsted inspection at the Park Avenue Girls’ High School in Stoke-on-Trent, which charges pupils £1,500 per year, found it was ‘not common practice’ to provide soap, toilet paper or drinking water.
Instead, girls at the school had to request it from the school office.
An Ofsted inspection at the Park Avenue Girls’ High School, which charges pupils £1,500 per year, found it was ‘not common practice’ to provide soap, toilet paper or water
The school, which was visited in October, has now been rated ‘inadequate’.
The report states: ‘At the time of the inspection, it was not the school’s common practice to provide soap for pupils’ hand-washing, toilet roll in the toilets or suitable drinking water.
‘Toilet paper is available from the school office when pupils request it.
‘Pupils told inspectors that they sometimes avoided using toilets for the whole school day because of this.
‘During the inspection, leaders began to put toilet roll into the toilets, provide soap and suitable drinking water.’
In many Muslim, Hindu and Sikh cultures, as well as in Southeast Asia and Southern Europe, water is usually used for anal cleansing using a jet, as with a bidet, or most commonly, splashed and washed with the hand. This can be followed up with drying using a cloth towel or toilet paper
In many Muslim, Hindu and Sikh cultures, as well as in Southeast Asia and Southern Europe, water is usually used for anal cleansing using a jet, as with a bidet, or most commonly, splashed and washed with the hand. This can be followed up with drying using a cloth towel or toilet paper.
Inspectors did not state the reasoning behind the school’s toilet paper policy in their report, but headteacher Abdul Ghafoor Salloo told The Stoke Sentinel: ‘Our children wash themselves, but they can use toilet paper as well. It’s not the case that toilet rolls were never there.
‘We have a supplementary class who use the school in the evenings. We were getting some issues with them messing about and so we sometimes removed the toilet paper.’
The school, which caters for 34 pupils aged 11 to 16, was given an inadequate rating following an inspection in October. It charges an annual fee of £1,500.
Inspectors found further problems in the school, including sectarian material and a range of high-risk hazards.
They said: ‘Inspectors found published sectarian material in a storeroom behind the school office.
‘They made the headteacher aware of this. The headteacher explained that he was not aware of how the materials came to be in school.
‘At the end of the inspection the headteacher confirmed that he planned to destroy the material and suitably vet all remaining published material in the school.
‘Inspectors did not find any evidence that this sectarian material had influenced teaching or learning in school.
However, inspectors also noted that ‘relationships between staff and pupils are strong and lead to pupils’ positive behaviour.
They added: ‘Pupils’ behaviour is good.
‘They follow instructions willingly and are well behaved at all times while on the school premises.’
Mr Sallo told the BBC that washing facilities were always available to the children and that the school ‘never meant any harm’ to the students.
He said: ‘We have bought a purpose built school in the area and are working on that at the moment. When it is complete, we will move over there.
‘We are run by a charity organisation and our focus has been on getting the purpose built school ready and moving the staff and students over there.
‘We may have overlooked a few things here while we are working on that.’