Spring cleaning for September

You’ve finally made it to the end of the school year, but before you go on holiday, Jo Marchant reminds you to think ahead to September and get ready to welcome your students and staff back to a shiny, sparkling school

The end of the summer term and into the holidays is the perfect time to be spring cleaning and decluttering your school ready for September.  Having a checklist to follow means that your spring-cleaning activities will be done as efficiently and as effectively as follows.  So, here’s my checklist as a starter for ten:

• Declutter your classrooms – In the last 2 weeks of term ask staff to start clearing out any items that they no longer need.  Make sure you’ve ordered a skip first (and possibly several!) so that you can dispose of the items quickly.  You may also want to arrange for additional recycling bin lifts as well.
• Centralise your unwanted resources – This is a great time to have a “resources amnesty”.  Ask staff to bring all their unused and unwanted resources to a central point so that you can redistribute these to staff in September instead of ordering more.
• Finalise your furniture moves – In most schools there will be several classroom or office moves each summer.  Ensure your premises staff know exactly what needs to be moved and to where, but also ensure that staff don’t start moving furniture themselves as they won’t have been trained in manual handling.
• Organise your archiving – This is a job that office staff rarely have time for during the term, but it pays dividends later when you need to find a document, so be organised with your archiving.  Set aside a day or two to identify what information you no longer need to keep and arrange for a confidential waste collection to shred it.
• Choose your colours – If you’re having some areas of your school walls repainted, ensure your decorators know exactly what colours to use before everyone leaves for the holidays.
• Deep cleaning – Book your deep clean with your cleaners so that it fits around any building or maintenance work you’re having done.  Ensure that flooring is accessible so that carpets can be deep cleaned and floors stripped, re-sealed and re-polished.  Make sure that all surfaces are clear to help your cleaners maximise the time they have.
• Shampoo your sofas – If your school has sofas or other soft furnishings, ensure that they’re deep cleaned as well.  Not only will they be clean, but it will give them a new lease of life.
• Inspect your white goods – All your fridges, freezers, washing machines and dishwashers should be inspected annually by a contractor to ensure they’re still in good working order.  Make sure you tell staff that they should remove all food from fridges before the end of term and to give their fridge a clean as well.
• Deep clean your kitchen – Every year your catering kitchen needs to have a high level clean carried out with all mechanical ventilation, ducting and fans cleaned, so make sure you’ve got your contract cleaners booked in to do this in good time.
• Be oven ready – Food Technology classrooms get a lot of use throughout the year, so it’s a good idea to have your ovens professionally cleaned during the summer holidays.  You may also want to include cleaning the microwaves in your staff rooms.
• Shine your windows – Try to book your window cleaning for the last week or two of the summer holidays so that they look shiny clean for the start of the autumn term.
• Cleanse your keyboards – Computers get a lot of use, but keyboards rarely get cleaned so provide your staff with the appropriate cleaning materials so that they can give their keyboard a good scrub.
• Staff room makeover – Staff rooms are one of the most highly used rooms in your school, but probably get the least attention.  Consider giving your staff room a makeover to make your staff feel special when they return to school.

Jo Marchant is author of the bestselling The School Premises Handbook which can be purchased at amazon.co.uk or waterstones.com.