May 29, 2020
Operating any facility during a global pandemic brings about many challenges including the safety of the staff, pupils and other site users. Hygiene, cleanliness and sanitisation have quickly jumped into a role of critical importance – something which the public are going to expect to be reassured of once we reach a stage of increased reopening. Our experts have provided some insights into what to expect.
The media has floated images and plans of potential protection methods we might see. As a result the population is expecting changes such as plexiglass at reception desks, additional sanitising stations, extra bins, more visible evidence of cleaning, extra laundry capacity, changes to the waste collection streams and social distancing markers. Taking government guidelines and implementing your own measures as a result will reassure others of your awareness and capability, and ultimately their own safety.
Now is the time to raise your cleaning activity. With numerous people moving around your site, surface contact is going to be high. It is crucial that the status quo is addressed. Common areas are going to require additional cleans throughout the day particularly when used by one group then another. It is critical that this additional cleaning is built into the cleaning routine. Visibly seeing this increased cleaning activity will be reassuring and boost confidence.
Schools naturally have areas of high contact and therefore high risk. Take the dining room: the touching of cutlery and utensils, handling of trays, ‘heavy traffic areas’ – there are numerous challenges in this room alone. Action must be taken to reduce the risk. There is no reason why dining rooms cannot continue to function, as long as we put the right precautions and systems into place, increase our frequency and intensity of cleaning and eradicate unnecessary risks. Within our recent ‘3 Day Challenge’ with CAP members, 61 ‘best practices’ were listed as steps to be taken to help reduce the risks of spreading germs.
Ultimately your housekeeping measures and cleaning standards need to be intrinsically linked into the running of your school. Arrange a Housekeeping Audit to check if your cleaning standards and working practices are up to scratch and gain the reassurance that you’re doing all you can to protect your pupils and your teams.
Contact us if you’d like to know more on +44 (0)1858 540200 or e-mail HQ@capaward.co.uk