We’re all aware how important great teaching staff and an engaging, meaningful curriculum is to children’s learning. But what you may not know is that the learning environment also has a huge impact on how well children learn.
To the untrained eye, the different areas of your educational facility may appear clean and safe. But do you ever wonder what lurks in the nooks and crannies in the playground or under desks?
Let’s explore the real benefits of a clean and safe educational facility, and look at why you should put in place a regular, professional cleaning program.
Safe and hygienic learning environments
The Education Act 1989 New Zealand states:
To ensure the health and safety of children, the premises, furniture, fittings, equipment and materials are kept safe, hygienic and maintained in good condition.
It’s clearly stated in the Education Act that your educational facility must meet the hygienic regulatory standards for health and safety. If your school falls below these standards, you could be opening your facility up to a lot more than just unhealthy children, your educational centre could be held under review.
Basically, you can have the best curriculum delivered by the best teachers, but if the classrooms and playground aren’t safe and hygienic, then the effort educators put in can be wasted.
The real cost of unhygienic classrooms
Not a lot of people know how important it is to have their school, day-care or kindergarten professionally cleaned on a regular basis.
Studies from all around the world demonstrate that a clean and hygienic educational environment is essential for ongoing, successful learning to take place, and that an unhygienic environment can cause significant disruptions to the learning process through sickness of both students and teachers.
Schools are a bit like petri dishes, and so it’s a given that if one child is sick, germs will spread from that child through contact with other children, and more children will fall ill. It’s common for bugs to spread quickly throughout the student body, causing children to miss days of school, potentially falling behind in their studies. This is an inconvenience not only for the student, but also for their teachers, who must ensure each child is fully up-to-date.
The other side of this is that when there are a lot of sick students, the greater the chance of teaching staff falling ill as well. When a teacher is sick and has to take time off, the school must pay for a relief teacher to cover their classes.
This is an extra expense many schools in New Zealand can well do without.
Surface contamination – the invisible enemy
From colds and flu to stomach bugs, one of the most common way illnesses spread through schools is through surface contamination.
A child who is ill will sneeze or cough into their hand, or wipe their nose, transferring the bugs on their hands onto commonly touched surfaces such as door hands, backs of chairs, shared books, pens and desks.
This becomes a real issue in high schools, where the same desk and chair is used by multiple students each day.
Educators do their part by educating children about hygienic practices, but there’s only so much they can do.
How a regular cleaning program by professional cleaners can make a difference
While a classroom or playground may look clean, germs are invisible to the naked eye.
Unless your cleaning program has been designed to property target unseen germs, your educational facility is simply not hygienic and safe.
Hiring the services of professional cleaners is the best way to ensure the interior and exterior of your school buildings are properly cleaned regularly and in a targeted way.
Professional cleaners identify the surfaces which are most commonly prone to contamination, such as:
- Door handles
- Desks
- Backs of chairs
- Handrails
- Playground equipment
Professional cleaners know which products are the most appropriate and effective for each individual surface. They also actively keep up to date with best practice cleaning procedures and products, adjusting them accordingly.
Cleanscape – your extra pair of eyes
Cleanscape take the health and safety of children and staff seriously. That’s why we pay careful attention to detail when cleaning educational facilities, ensuring that, when the learning day is done, each classroom and playground is clean and hygienic, so educators can get on with their jobs.
