Highgate Primary School: Unacceptable toilet shortage forcing kids to hold on all day

A dire shortage of toilets at an overcrowded public primary school is forcing children to “hold on” all day until they get home. The plight of the students at Highgate Primary School has been revealed in a letter from the school’s board to Education Minister Tony Buti, describing the school as “bursting at the seams” and the number of toilets as “entirely inadequate”. “In the upper school there are just three toilets per 300 students,” the letter — leaked to The West Australian — stated. “As a result, the toilets are dirty, regularly broken and children are holding on until they go home. This is unacceptable in general, but especially given this group of students includes girls going through puberty.” The concern is just one of a litany of complaints raised by frustrated parents and staff at Highgate, where the number of students has exploded from 567 to 930 in the past five years. The board demanded the State Government provide a firm commitment on constructing a second school to serve the rapidly growing CBD population and ease pressure on Highgate. It was becoming “incredibly difficult” for staff to continue providing students with excellent learning opportunities in a school that was “bursting at the seams”, board chair Imogen Scanlan wrote in the letter, also addressed to local MP and Housing Minister John Carey. Music lessons and one-on-one learning support sessions were being held in hallways because there was no classroom available. Staggered lunch times meant sports lessons were being held in the undercover area at the same time other students were eating lunch or using the canteen — disrupting both groups. Daily fitness sessions had been dropped because there was not enough room for every class to take part in morning exercise, and the staff room was not big enough to fit all the school’s staff at one time. Since 2021, eight transportable classrooms have been added to the school’s small site — including two this year — reducing limited play-space and staff carparks and requiring the removal of students’ vegetable gardens. “The school has one small grass space and one small, under-equipped playground for Years 1 to 6,” the letter said. “This tiny play space is being encroached on every year. There is simply no more room for transportable classrooms.” Highgate P&C president Sam Maisey, also a practising GP, said shunning toilets during the school day could lead to students experiencing bladder problems and anxiety. “They’re just dirty from multiple children using a very small number of toilets,” Dr Maisey said. “It can be a difficult time for girls, and not being able to access clean facilities and things they need to manage their periods can cause a lot of fear and shame around what shouldn’t be fearful or shameful.” Highgate PS, which is less than 2km north of Perth’s centre, opened in 1895 and is one of the city’s oldest schools. Its catchment area takes in Perth, East Perth and Northbridge as well as Highgate. Dr Maisey said the P&C and the board had pushed for years for another school because Highgate had more than double the number of students it had been built to cater for. “There are whole cohorts of kids — my own included — that have gone through this school overcrowded and it affects their experience,” she said. “The whole place is really noisy because there are twice as many kids as the site’s designed for, and that puts pressure on kids with noise sensitivity.” A spokesman for Mr Buti said the State Government was undertaking investigations for a new inner-city school. “The local MP John Carey has regularly engaged with the Highgate PS community,” he said. “The Education Department actively monitors enrolment growth, residential development and capacity at existing schools to determine solutions to meet enrolment growth.” Shadow education minister Peter Rundle said if the Government kept pushing for urban infill, it must plan for children’s schooling. “They need some space, they need adequate toilet facilities for the number of students they’ve got,” he said.