A West Midlands secondary school, Summerhill, is under fire for installing CCTV in the area of pupils’ lavatories. Summerhill says that the cameras are not directed anywhere near urinals or cubicles. However, parents say that children are refusing to use the lavatories, to the point of almost wetting themselves, and are even ringing their parents to be taken home to use the loos at home.
One doesn’t have to be Sigmund Freud to ponder the dangers of making children inhibited about using the lavatory. You can see where Summerhill is coming from – school loos are hotbeds of activity, including bullying. Indeed, the CCTV was only installed because of problems with student behaviour. However, it’s been pointed out that, for instance, a prefect, or two, could be put on duty in the vicinity.
Nor does recording pupils coming and going require cameras inside actual lavatories. This isn’t about children being especially sensitive – most people prefer public lavatories of any kind to be as private as possible. Some might recall the mass incredulity when communal loos were featured on the television show, Ally McBeal. Billed as the “future of the workplace toilet”, the mixed sex loo never caught on – it transpired that most didn’t agree that it was the zenith of corporate team spirit for men and women to grimly mingle at the gummed-up liquid soap dispenser. Well, who’d have guessed it?
In the same way, it’s somewhat unsurprising that kids don’t like the idea of cameras in their lavatories. Give them a break. Quite apart from anything else, school is a big, noisy, active, uber-communal space. The lavatories are probably one of the few zones of near-privacy a pupil has left, and should remain sacrosanct.
