School

Toilet provision at JGHS – results of parent survey

26 February 2026: Many thanks to those who submitted responses to the Parent Council survey about toilet provision at JGHS.

This survey was carried out to provide feedback to the City of Edinburgh Council about the changes in toilet and changing provision made in August 2025. This followed the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the Equality Act 2010 that for the purposes of the Act, the term ‘sex’ refers to a persons’ sex assigned at birth only.  

The School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967 stipulate minimum numbers of toilet facilities that must be provided in schools and that those toilet facilities must be split between boys and girls.  The effect of the Equality Act and the School Premises Regulations is that all schools must have separate male and female toilets and should also have gender neutral toilet provision.

To ensure the Council is acting lawfully, it was necessary to make changes to the school estate from August 2025.  In all schools, transgender young people who previously used the toilet or changing facilities of the gender they identify with are no longer able to do so.

Although the Council did not have a choice about whether to make these changes, they want to understand the impact of the changes (positive or negative) and mitigate any negative impact, considering all protected characteristics* under the Equality Act 2010.

The JGHS Parent Council surveyed the views of parents in the School at the start of February 2026 and fed this back to the Council as part of the Council’s wider consultation about the impact of the changes. A summary of responses we received is presented below.

*Protected characteristics: age; gender reassignment; being married or in a civil partnership; being pregnant or on maternity leave; disability; race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation.

Question 1: Considering all the protected characteristics, note any positive impact of the changes in your school.

Parental feedback suggests a perception of positive impacts in relation to increased clarity and designation of male and female facilities.

In particular, some parents consider that clearly defined single-sex spaces may favourite privacy and dignity for girls and female pupils.

A smaller number of responses indicate that structured and clearly signposted provision, including gender-neutral and accessible options where available, may offer clarity within the school environment.

However, positive impacts were not consistently identified across protected characteristics.

Question 2: Considering all the protected characteristics, note any negative impact of the changes in your school.

Parental responses indicate that the most significant perceived negative impacts relate to pupils with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Concerns were raised regarding safety, dignity, wellbeing, mental health, and the risk of stigma or exclusion.

Potential impacts were also identified for disabled pupils, particularly in relation to access to accessible facilities.

Overall, feedback suggests that certain protected groups may experience disproportionate impact and that these effects require careful monitoring.

Question 3: Do you have suggestions to mitigate any negative impacts noted above?

Parents suggested a range of mitigation measures.

These include:

  • maintaining and, where possible, expanding a mix of male, female, gender-neutral (including clearly defined single-occupancy where appropriate) and accessible facilities
  • improvements to privacy in existing facilities through appropriate design features
  • strengthened student support, ensuring pupils who feel anxious or distressed are supported sensitively
  • anti-bullying measures, staff training, clear communication, and continued engagement with affected pupils and families.

Ongoing monitoring of wellbeing and review of provision were identified as important to ensure that mitigation measures remain effective.

Survey re-opened

Although the survey was set up to collect feedbackfor the Council’s consultation, there was also considerable information submitted about broader issues of toilet provision at JGHS. The Parent Council is planning to share this with the JGHS leadership team to help inform action in the school.

As the timeframe for the previous survey was rather short, the feedback form has now been reopened. If you have any (further) comments you would like to share please submit via the link below:

Survey: Toilet and changing provision

If you have any comments about the survey or other issues more generally, please contact us by email:

Email JGHS Parent Council

JGHS bookdrive fundraiser

7 December 2025: The Parent Council’s Small Sums Fund distributes funds raised by the school back to the School Community. 

Small Sums Fund

English reading circles for S1 and S2

This year we have been raising funds to buy books that will support pupils in S1 and S2 to (re)discover a love for reading and literature, in reading circles in English classes.

The English curriculum team have develped a fantastic list of books across all genres that small groups of pupils can get together to read and discuss. Titles include books from mystery and detective fiction, contemporary fiction, adventure, comedy, graphic novels, thrillers, and science and historical fiction – truly something for everyone.

The funds raised will buy packs of 5 copies of the same book, so that all pupils in a reading circle will have a copy to take home and read.

To make the funds go as far as possible, we are buying pre-owned, as well as new books. We have already bought sets of Nancy Springer’s “Enola Holmes – the Missing Marquess”, Katherine Rundell’s “The Explorer”, and Malorie Blackman’s “Robot Girl”.

Please support if you can

We are working with the James Gillespie’s Trust, a registered charity, so that we can claim gift-aid on any donations made, and make the funds go even further.

JGHS bookdrive fundraiser – Justgiving

If you are able to donate, please visit the Trust’s justgiving page – all the funds that come through this appeal will go directly to buying books that will go into school.

Many thanks!!

Have your say – HMIE inspection

4 February 2025: As you will have seen already, JGHS will be visited by inspectors from Education Scotland in the week of Monday 24 February 2025.  

As part of the preparation for the inspection, all parents and carers have been sent the link to a survey about their experiences with the school.

Parent and carer survey

This is an important opportunity to have your voice heard about the issues that matter most to you, so please do take the time to complete the survey and leave your comments.

Please note that all responses must be submitted by Friday 7 February.

The inspectors will also be meeting with the parent council during their visit, and will be particularly interested to discuss:

  • how well the school works in partnership with parents and carers;
  • how well the school keeps parents and carers informed of progress of their children’s learning;
  • examples of how parents and carers work with the school to support children’s/young people’s learning

If you have any comments about these matters that you would like to share with the PC, please do contact us by email.

Please send us any feedback by Monday 17 February so that we can collate the responses.

Many thanks!

Email the Parent Council

Welcome to the new S1 students

17 June 2024. It was great to see so many of the parents of the incoming S1 students at the P7/S1 transition event at JGHS today.

A copy of the slides presented by our co-chair Hilary Snaith are available below. They give information about the role of the Parent Council at JGHS, some details about the activities we have been engaged with over the past year, and information about how you can get invovled.

Welcome to the JGHS Parent Council (opens as pdf)

Our first meeting of the new session will be Tuesday 3 September – we hope to see you there!

If you have any questions at all, or if you have feedback you would like to share, please get in touch by email:

Email the Parent Council

The Chat: parental engagement about relationships, sexual health and parenthood

27 October 2023: Healthy Respect – NHS partners who provide training on relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) – are setting up a new parental engagement project looking to find out what parents and carers want and need to support their child’s learning around RSHP.

A coalition of NHS Boards commissioned independent research to explore with parents and carers a number of themes, including:

  • How they support their child’s learning at home in terms of RSHP topics
  • What they know and think about the RSHP learning going on at school
  • How they want home and school to work together (so that children and young people get the best learning experiences)
  • What would help parents and carers at home in their role as their child’s teacher on all these matters.

The new project that has been developed from this is called The Chat:

Visit The Chat website

There are a number of ways that parents/carers can get involved. The first opportunity is to be part of a group conversation about this area of learning. Please see the Chat website for more information.

JGHS School Improvement Plan 2023/24

26 September 2023: Following on from the last meeting of the Parent Council on 5 September, the School Improvement Plan for 2023/24 is now available. The plan covers five key priorities:

  • Leadership of Change
  • Curriculum
  • Learning, Teaching and Assessment
  • Ensuring Wellbeing, Equality and Inclusion
  • Raising Attainment and Achievement

You can download the full plan, and the summary of priorities at the links below:

JGHS School Improvement Plan 2023/24 (opens as pdf)

JGHS School Improvement Plan 2023/24 Priorities (opens as pdf)