Stop Debating Why Schools Lock Toilets. Start Fixing What It Did to Your Graduates.
The reasons don’t matter. The damage is already done. And you are the one who has to pay the bill.
Last week, I wrote about “Bella,” a 16-year-old student who asked me what happens in the “real world” when you need the toilet. She was genuinely shocked to learn that adults are allowed to stand up and leave their desks to attend to their basic bodily needs.
In her school, the toilets are locked during lessons.
The message is clear: Your body comes last. Compliance comes first.
The response to that story was... illuminating.
My inbox and social media comments filled up with teachers and school leaders explaining why they do it.
“We have to stop vaping.”
“We don’t have enough staff to monitor the halls.”
“It’s a safeguarding issue.”
“If we let them go, they’ll never come back.”
I heard the frustration. I heard the exhaustion. And I lived it – I was a class teacher in Primary and Secondary schools in South London and in Yorkshire. One of my schools had a dedicated police officer!
Last week, I heard the reality of an underfunded, overworked system trying to manage 1,600 teenagers with limited resources.
For a while, I got sucked into the debate, the rationalisations, the problem-solving exercises…
And then I realised: I don’t care.
Not because I don’t empathise with teachers. I know the pressure. But from where I sit now—straddling the world of schools and the world of work—the reason the door is locked is irrelevant.
The result is what matters.
And the result is landing squarely on your desk, HR Director.
The Debate is a Distraction
Schools can debate the ethics of padlocks until the cows come home. They can justify it as “safety” or “necessity.” They can tell themselves they are preparing kids for the rigours of adult life.
But here is the hard truth that the education system cannot see because they are too focused on the next term, the next exam, the next inspection:
It doesn’t matter why the rule exists. It only matters what the child, a young person, a young adult learned from it.
When a young person spends six or seven years being told that their bladder, their period, their hunger, and their comfort are less important than staying in their seat, they don’t learn “discipline.”
They learn learned helplessness.
They internalise a single, devastating message: My needs are a burden. Speaking up is risky. Survival means staying quiet and doing exactly what I’m told.
The Bill Comes Due in Your Boardroom
You aren’t hiring a student anymore. You’re hiring a 21-year-old graduate who has just completed a 14-year training program in compliance.
When they walk into your office, they aren’t thinking about your Q3 targets. They are running on a survival operating system installed by a system that punished them for having human needs.
They don’t ask for clarification on a project because they’re terrified of being “that kid” who talks out of turn.
They don’t take a break when they’re burning out because they’ve been trained that leaving your post is a violation.
They don’t innovate or take risks because for 14 years, the only safe answer was the one in the back of the book.
They sit in your meetings, physically uncomfortable, mentally distracted, wasting precious cognitive bandwidth wondering if they’re allowed to exist as a human being.
You might call this a “skills gap.” You might say they lack resilience or initiative.
But it’s not a skills gap. It’s a safety gap.
They aren’t lazy. They aren’t “soft.” They are hyper-vigilant. They are waiting for permission to be human. And until you give it to them, they cannot give you their best work.
You Cannot Wait for the System to Change
I am actively lobbying for educational reform. I am fighting to change the system so no child has to go through this. But let’s be honest: legislation takes years. Policy shifts take decades.
Your business cannot wait.
You have a team now. You have targets now. You have bright, brilliant young people sitting in your office who are currently too scared to use their brilliance.
You cannot fix the Department for Education. But you can change your culture.
Be The Rain
In my keynote, Washing Off the Grey, I talk about the metaphor of the rain. The “grey” is the layer of conditioning these young people wear to survive. It’s not who they are; it’s what they had to become to get through school.
You don’t need to strip the paint off them. You don’t need to retrain them from scratch.
You just need to be the rain.
You need to create a micro-climate in your team where the rules of the school system no longer apply.
Where asking for a break is seen as self-care, not weakness.
Where a mistake is treated as data, not a behaviour point.
Where “I don’t know” is an invitation to learn, not a failure.
When you create that safety, something magical happens. The grey washes off. The compliance drops away. And underneath, you find the critical thinker, the innovator, the brave leader you hired them to be.
The Choice Is Yours
Schools have their reasons. Teachers have their pressures. The debate will continue.
But while they debate, your junior staff are sitting in silence, waiting for someone to tell them it’s okay to be human.
Will you be the authority figure who reinforces the fear? Or will you be the one who washes it away?
The damage is done.
But the healing? That starts with you.
Ready to help your team wash off the grey?
I help HR Directors and leadership teams transform conditioned compliance into confident autonomy. Whether through a high-energy keynote or a deep-dive workshop, I give you the tools to build a culture where young people feel safe enough to be brilliant.
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Let’s stop painting over the grey with branded colours. Be The Rain.
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