How to convince my school to allow year 11 students to use lockers?

My school has lockers in every corridor but wont allow students to use them. I'm on school council and have been pushing for a while (years!) to reopen them for student use but the SLT wont change their permission. They've been saying since i joined year 7 in Sep 2020 that the lockers will be taken down. 4 years later and they're still taking up unnecessary space in the corridors.
I think they would be a massive help going into year 11 and have changed my goal to having lockers available to senior students only. Bare in mind my school doesn't have a sixth form so thats only 1/5 of the student body and not all year 11s would purchase a locker anyway.
SLT's arguments ---> mine:
• They have no control over what people will store in their lockers ---> they also have no control over what people carry in their bags, certain students have easily used prohibited items/ illegal substances without even owning lockers and the focus should be on disciplining this minority instead of making life harder for the majority, students who rent lockers can simply sign a contract with rules and what not
• Lockers take up too much space in the corridors ---> no body struggles to get around the school due to the lockers being in the way, there is enough space in the corridors for 1000+ students to get around the school building at once, if the lockers cause such a problem why haven't they been taken down all this time?, 1-way-system of travel is more of a hindrance as it causes 'traffic jams' and lateness due to inefficiency
• Students in the past 4 years have managed fine without lockers ---> many students complain that they have to carry too much around the school, students will sports extracurriculars or pe lessons have to carry kit around all day, in winter we aren't allowed coats on in the building but still have to carry them around, a number of year 10/11 students experienced bags breaking/straps tearing across the last school year due to carrying too much, previous year 11 students used to hide extra items in the storage cupboards of classrooms across the school - this provides no security for their possessions but was the only option they had, head of years office used to be full of student's items but once this practice was banned there was a mass reduction in the amount of students with correct equipment in lessons (students start to select which items they'd benefit more from bringing e.g. which lessons they'd get in less trouble for lack of equipment, whether they'd rather bring school books or revision materials etc) - they may not like this but its true, school computers are outdated and slow - many people bring their own laptops to use after school and it would be nice to have somewhere secure to store them instead of lugging them around all day, many students aren't able to go home first to collect items that they may need for after school study sessions/ extracurricular activities
• Will cause students to get late to class or block the corridors because they're getting things from their lockers ---> make a a rule that lockers are only to be accessed before+after school and during break+lunch - this is fair and students will not argue against a policy like this
• They'll ensure the school library is open more often (??) ---> has nothing to do with anything, school library is hardly large enough to accommodate more than 30 students at a time and we often face overcrowding, library is an unreliable resource (opening depends on librarian being in, they have banned entire year groups before for noise/ overcrowding and did this during our year 10 end of years), school computers are very few as well as slow and outdated and students aren't allowed to use their own devices in the school building so can't do much work online, school library is only open until 4pm and local libraries close a lot later, for these reasons students prefer to study externally e.g. at local libraries or youth centres
• We said no (??) ---> as a school you're supposed to strive to improve the experiences of your students and this is one way you could do that, it wouldn't cost you anything as the lockers are already in place, money collected from termly rent could go towards other projects (would be extremely helpful for school council as we dont have a budget), school is rated "requires improvement" in quality of education and ofsted has already pointed out that more should be done to support students in their learning both in and out of the classroom

Sorry for the poor structure i've just listed everything i can think of. I really hate leadership positions because it feels like everything is an uphill battle and even if your argument is completely sound the SLT will say no for the fun of it. I've tried to get them to at least show up to the school council meetings as there is only so much we can get across to them in passing in the hallways or at break time but they wont. Its my last year in the school so i'm really trying to push for more recognition of student voice especially in the making of decisions that impact us. I'm thinking of also doing a petition but if the school disagrees there will be a lot of discontent within the student body. But at least i could say i tried? And it would be great to show the number of students and teachers who would support this cause.
Anyone else ever done something like this? Or had lockers become an issue at your school? Any advice? Or research papers that state the benefits of having lockers lol.
Thanks!

Reply 1

DerDracologe

Study Forum Helper

I can see the point about them taking up space. If people are in the corridor taking stuff out of a locker then unless your school has unusually wide corridors stuff will get jostled around and people bumped into. My school has lockers for sixth formers and year 7s with the sixth form lockers in the sixth form corridor (only 1 classroom at the end of it) and the year 7 lockers outside.
If you want to change their mind though I’d suggest maybe a vote (via an online form most likely) for year 11s, year 10s and all staff members. Beforehand you could send out an email to all voters and you could put your points and SLT can include theirs or have an assembly to convey similar info. However, you’d have to get SLT to agree to this- dont just promise students that if you get a majority then you can enact the change.
If SLT say no then dont push it! You dont want to get yourself too involved in something which is ultimately the school’s decision because it might make them possibly less likely to support you in future projects if you dont take no for an answer or get shirty with them- so basically make sure to keep discussions civil!