03 March 2023 , 14:25
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A headteacher has hit back at critics who slammed his school for taking down mirrors in school bathrooms and replacing the ones in the girls with "motivational posters".
The controversial image was shared on social media and showed the quotes like: "Beauty is nothing without brains" and "Dear girls, Make-up is a harmful drug. Once you start using it, you’ll feel ugly without it", reportedly appearing at Christopher Whitehead Language College in Worcestershire.
One person commenting on the picture on social media added that the posters are shaming girls, not praising them.
And a parent had told the local paper: “The school has removed all mirrors from the toilets (including the boys), however in the girls' toilets they’ve covered the wall in place of the mirror with ‘inspirational quotes’, however they are far from that.
“The quotes are degrading. This is not the message we want to be sending to extremely impressionable girls as young as 11.
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Neil Morris, headteacher at Christopher Whitehead Language College in Worcester (Worcester News / SWNS)“In the boys' toilets, they’ve blocked off some urinals only leaving two available, as well as removing the door of the toilet completely leaving anyone to be able to look in.”
But headteacher Neil Morris told the Mirror the posters had been taken out of context and there was a much more reasonable explanation.
Speaking to the Mirror he said: "The school is a large site with seven buildings and nine student toilet areas.
"We have no external door on eight of the toilet areas, allowing staff to see the sinks, not the cubicles. We have removed the ninth external door of the boys’ toilet area.
"Mirrors have been removed temporarily after a period of misuse where the toilets became a congregational social area with older students blocking the path to toilets, whilst they socialised, often late to lessons.
"All students have been written to."
Christopher Whitehead Language College (Worcester News / SWNS)Mr Morris added: "The English department has used this as an opportunity to provide some argumentative discursive letter writing.
"They put some provocative posters up in the one toilet area in their corridor before the lesson.
"This has produced some ‘frenzied’, powerful writing and debate. With hindsight, the posters should have been placed in their classroom area, not in one toilet."
He added: "Positively, yesterday a very productive meeting saw 26 students and two parents discuss our concerns and the way forward and the Student Council is being challenged to come up with an action plan."
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