A quality education isn’t your only obligation as a teacher or school administrator – you also owe your students a duty of care.
As part of that duty, you bear many responsibilities:
- Stamping out bullying
- Organising yard duty shifts
- Constant supervision
- Advice and first aid if needed
In addition to these responsibilities however, your duty of care also includes providing students with a clean and healthy learning environment.
School cleaning tips
Germs and bacteria don’t just take students away from class – they also pose a major health risk, especially as allergy rates rise around the country.
Without a clean school environment, you may aggravate allergies and potentially trigger allergic reactions in your students.
Luckily, regular cleaning can protect students’ health and ensure that your classrooms don’t become a hotspot for sickness and allergies.
With the new school year starting very soon, cleaning up after is no doubt near the top of your mind. It’s been several weeks since most facilities were used, and you’ll want to make sure no harmful germs have taken hold during that time.
Where can you start?
1) Make school cleaning a regular thing
The secret to a clean school? Regular cleaning.
Let’s face it, school facilities can be messy, especially with the number of students who come and go on any given day. The only way to keep up is with regular cleaning – we recommend weekly for most classrooms, and daily for facilities such as workshops, art rooms and toilets.
2) Give some slack time
So you’ve organised a professional cleaning service to come in at the end of the school day. Whatever you do, don’t schedule it for immediately after the final bell.
Instead, give an adequate amount of slack. We recommend at least half an hour after dismissal – this gives students enough time to filter out, and makes the task of cleaning easier on our end.
Not to mention, it protects your school image by keeping any dirty work away from the eyes of parents or students seeing!
3) Conduct deep cleaning
In many cases, weekly or even daily cleaning simply won’t cut it. Certain facilities require more frequent cleaning to keep on top of bacteria, germs and messes.
In particular, you’ll want to focus on toilet facilities.
By their very nature, toilet facilities are the perfect environment for bacteria, germs and mould. Since regular cleaning also includes cleaning for classrooms and other facilities, toilet areas won’t always get the attention they need.
As such, deep cleaning should be scheduled for particularly troublesome areas independently of other areas.
4) Vet cleaning products carefully
As part of your duty of care, you don’t just need to ensure that your school is clean. You also need to ensure that the products used in said cleaning won’t harm your students either!
Luckily for you, professional school cleaners understand their responsibilities go beyond just cleaning. For sensitive jobs like school cleaning, we select products that kill germs and bacteria without harmful side-effects.
5) Disinfect, disinfect, disinfect!
One way germs spread is through contact. And while you can’t outright ban physical contact (kids will play, after all), there are other things you can do to stem the spread of viruses and bacteria.
One idea is to institute a disinfection policy. Think about supplying each classroom with a bottle of hand disinfectant and encourage students and teachers to use it as they come in and leave.
6) Up the cleaning during winter
Winter is flu season. Any seasoned teacher or school administrator knows that winter is the season of sick notices, empty desks and relief teachers.
To limit the spread of the flu during the colder months, we recommend scheduling more frequent cleaning. That means ramping up the frequency of deep cleans and disinfecting trouble spots such as door handles.
At your wit’s end? Let a professional school cleaner take care of it for you
Master Cleaners takes care of the cleaning jobs you can’t handle
With hundreds and even thousands of students and teachers coming and going every single day, it’s no wonder that schools are a breeding ground for germs, bacteria and other viruses.
As such, creating a clean and healthy environment needs to be one of your highest priorities as a school administrator.
And a professional school cleaning service like Master Cleaners can help you do that.
Master Cleaner has a decade of experience with highly specialised cleaning jobs.
On top of tough jobs like factory cleaning, we also provide cleaning services for places where strict cleanliness is a must such as:
- Restaurants and kitchens
- Hospitals and healthcare facilities
- And yes, even school cleaning service!
All you need to do is call. Get in touch with us on 1800 11 22 34 to see how we can keep your students and staff safe and healthy!
