The answer to the problem of Schools Maintenance
Maintaining a school is a real problem. You see, head teachers and deputy heads are there because of their teaching skills. But management is a very different matter, especially when it concerns things you know next to nothing about. For head teachersare not experts in managing maintnenance.
Years ago, schools used to employ maintenance staffand they could usually keep things going. They could do a bleed radiators and tell the head about the need for new tiles in the canteen. But they were not really good at schools maintenance because they had to be able to do all sorts of jobs when they cropped up as there was no planning involved.
Specialised staff needed
Unlike 20 years ago, schools are much bigger, so the caretaker is a caretaker, and if you want maintenance done in a school, you need special staff – but you can’t keep them busy all the time. The solution is to use a firm that specialises in commercial maintenance, or better still, Schools maintenance. In fact, you will probably need a commercial carpenter, and these firms have them as well.
You then arrange to get three or four firms in to give you quotations for the work you want done, which might involve some cleaning, but otherwise jobs like:
Checking all light bulbs and lamps regulary; Working to a regular schedule of repainting the classrooms and common rooms; Maintaining the swimming pool; Checking and reporting on the condition of corridors and gates at regular intervals.
With this sort of programme of schools maintenance your school will be kept in better condition than before, usually at lower real cost than before.
