School is a vast place with complex structures. Hundreds of classrooms, crowded canteens, laboratories, gymnasiums, parking lots and much more.
This isn’t any house with a few rooms or an office with limited space—it’s a much larger space with students’ and teachers’ crowds.
And students are always messy due to the nature of being teenagers or pre-teens or tweens.
The messy nature of students, particularly in their teenage years, makes classroom cleaning more challenging.
Therefore, classroom cleaning techniques in school become a more laborious task compared to a house or workplace.
This blog will discuss the top ten school cleaning challenges and how you can solve them. Let’s start!
Key School Management Challenges and Effective Classroom Cleaning Solutions
1 – No Proper Structured Cleaning Process
The school is packed with hundreds of rooms, each with 20-30 students, gymnasiums, canteens, outdoor areas and even separate buildings for some departments.
Having no accurate classroom cleaning process in place means mismanagement in cleaning.
You might have in-house cleaning staff. Well, good. But without proper management, it won’t work.
Solutions:
First of all, set a pre-defined standard in a document, keep a record of all the cleaning tasks, create a proper cleaning checklist and allot an individual for each area cleaning along with duration.
2 – No Replacement of the Cleaning Staff
In general, everyone needs an off for a particular reason, be it an upper management or an administrative staff. And cleanliness is a task that cannot be ignored even for a single day. The absence of a backup plan can cause gaps in the cleaning process, affecting the school’s reputation.
Solution:
Having a plan and proper backup is critical. Always arrange a cleaning staff system in such a way that there should be substitute cleaning available for every cleaning task as a backup. You can make this part of the school cleaning policy.
3 – Fewer Members of Cleaning Staff
Assuming that a few staff can manage the entire cleaning process is not the right option. School premises aren’t like a workplace or even commercial property. It is a space where hundreds of students play, mess up stuff and much more.
Also, the building is large, with different operations such as laboratories, classrooms, canteens, gymnasiums, etc.
Handling the cleaning of such an environment requires careful attention and a substantial cleaning team for each area, with backup staff.
Solution:
Each staff member should be assigned to a specific area along with a substitute cleaning in case some are absent. Or, to have a better understanding, you need to check the number of rooms, types of rooms and the size of the space. Then, accordingly, recruit the necessary number of staff members for each area.
4 – Failed to Follow UK Standard Rules
Having in-house staff is good, but if the team is not aware of the hygiene and safety rules, then you fall short of meeting international cleaning standards.
In general, most school management has a decent staff that cleans well and arrives and departs punctually. But they lack understanding of safety and hygiene practices and fail to follow safety protocols.
Solution:
Always train your staff or hire BICSc-trained staff who understand ISO systems. If this seems impossible, you can hire a professional school cleaning service with qualified and experienced staff offering bespoke plans and flexible schedules.
5 – Lack Necessary Equipment
Your in-house staff might, in addition to being unaware of the cleaning standards, also lack the skills to use the equipment.
Or worse, the equipment is insufficient and unsuitable for the areas or assets that need cleaning.
Remember, different cleaning agents, tools and equipment serve different cleaning purposes.
Solution:
During the training of your cleaning staff, always train your staff on how to use the cleaning agents, tools and equipment. Always purchase equipment based on the assets or areas you want to clean. Classroom cleaning techniques depend on using the right tools and equipment.
6 – Cleaning Needed Most Often
School is like retail stores in that students can create messes, whereas in retail stores, visitors create the mess.
Classrooms are the most affected areas.
So, a lack of frequent scheduled cleaning slots for classrooms can result in a chaotic and unprofessional environment.
Solutions:
School management should implement a cleaning schedule after each hour for high-touch areas, especially those frequently used by students. Frequent cleaning will help reduce messes and maintain hygiene.
7 – No Intention of Having Weekly or Monthly Deep Cleaning
Most schools’ cleaning processes follow a regular schedule. An assigned cleaning staff cleans designated areas and leaves.
While this is a good procedure, deep cleaning, at least weekly or monthly, is just as important.
Certain areas, such as upper walls, windows, air vents, and HVAC systems, are hard to reach.
Certain assets, such as carpets, gym equipment, and hazardous areas like science laboratories, require deep cleaning.
Failing to deeply clean these areas can affect air quality, harm students’ health and damage the school’s reputation.
Solution:
Deep cleaning by in-house staff is not recommended; it’s better to hire school cleaning services experienced in managing large, complex school buildings.
8 – Time Mismanagement
Most in-house staff are not provided with the duration of the task. Cleaning at any time or when the staff feels feasible is not a good choice.
The result is that learning can be disrupted and students or staff may lose focus.
Ensuring that classrooms are neat during lessons, so that students are ready to learn without interruption, is what parents expect from schools.
Solution:
Apart from giving proper instruction regarding how to clean the areas as per the UK standards and skills in tools and equipment handling, you also need to train them to complete the task in a limited time or give them strict instructions to wrap up the cleaning job within this allotted time.
9 – Budget Limits
School management often underestimates the importance of investing in cleaning, assuming it is limited to basic tasks like mopping and wiping.
If we look out, we can see that some businesses are investing heavily in smart AI-based cleaning equipment to provide the best possible environment and indoor air quality for the staff.
Solution:
So, why isn’t school left behind on this? Investing in quality equipment, trained staff and deep cleaning through professional cleaning services is a smart choice that can help increase student enrollment.
The proper implementation of classroom cleaning techniques and investing in the right tools will guarantee a clean, hygienic environment conducive to learning.
10 – Limited Storage Space
The last might be the most overlooked challenge of school cleaning. It might be surprising that most schools do have quality cleaning tools and equipment, but unfortunately, they lack the space to store their property and manage it properly. This leads to a new challenge.
Worst, school management doesn’t care about that and with time, putting them in or letting them hang the quality tool in irrelevant areas.
Solution:
The ideal solution is to either build a space or multiple spaces for cleaning equipment for proper storage. If this is not possible, designate a room where cleaning agents, tools and equipment can be properly stored.
This will help maintain the necessary tools and classroom cleaning techniques readily available and well-organised for efficient use.
Conclusion
School cleaning is a far more important task within the school. A clean school attracts parents, encouraging them to enrol their children. It helps maintain the health of students and staff and builds a solid reputation in the market.
And most importantly, it’s a common operation of a school; we learn where we feel safe and safety starts from a clean atmosphere.
So, in case you feel cleaning your large and complex school building becomes challenging and you want cleanliness as per UK standards, using with right classroom cleaning techniques is essential to maintain a hygienic environment for students and staff.
