Stoke-on-Trent pupils avoid toilet at 'inadequate' school

The independent girls school has been rated as 'inadequate' by Ofsted

Pupils at an all-girls school avoided using the toilet as they were forced to ask for paper, inspectors have found.

It was not "common practice" for the independent Park Avenue Girls' High School, in Stoke-on-Trent, to provide rolls of paper in the toilets, an inspection by Ofsted revealed.

Instead, girls at the Muslim school would have to request it from the office.

The school, rated "inadequate", said it never intended any harm.

Ofsted's report said: "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."

Inspectors did not state the reasoning behind the school's toilet paper policy in their report.

They also found:

• Safeguarding arrangements are inadequate

• Not all pupils make consistently good progress

• The school's work to promote pupils' personal development and welfare is inadequate

• A range of high-risk hazards exist on the school site, which means that pupils are at risk of injury

However, inspectors also noted that pupils were polite and respectful to one another and to their teachers.

The school, which is on Avenue Road and has 34 pupils, was inspected from 10-12 October.

Headteacher, Abdul Sallo said 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."