5 ways to promote hygiene in your school
In our latest blog, we’ve put together a list of five ways that students and teachers can maintain good hygiene in your school environment. Find out more here.
After three months of classroom closures, primary schools in England started to reopen to reception, year one and year six pupils at the beginning of June. Welsh primary schools are set to follow suit at the end of the month, and in Scottish primareis are expected to reopen in August.
Although other schools in the UK may not be opened fully until September or later, it is important for all headteachers to be prepared in terms of their standards of cleaning, health and safety as well as PPE equipment.
In our latest blog, we’ve put together a list of five ways that students and teachers can maintain good hygiene in the school environment now that more pupils are returning to the classroom. Read on to find out more.
5 ways to promote hygiene in your school
1. Carry out a deep clean
The first step of making sure that your school is reopened to pupils and staff in a hygienic state is to carry out a thorough deep clean. This involves cleaning hard surfaces with warm soapy water, disinfecting with regular cleaning products, and ensuring that particular attention is paid to areas and surfaces in bathrooms such as toilets, grab-rails in corridors and stairwells, and door handles.
2. Promote social distancing
To maintain social distancing within your school, certain staff and pupils may need to stay 2m apart. To do this, floor stickers and markers should be used, classrooms should be reorganised and you should also consider staggering your schools opening hours, lunch and break times.
3. Promote good hygiene practices
Maintaining good hygiene practices will be essential to keeping your students and staff safe. Make sure that you have plenty of hand sanitizer available as well as mobile hand washing stations and hygienic hand dryers located around the school. It is also a good idea to put up posters regarding hand washing and other health and safety measures around the school, in order to remind everyone of their responsibilities.
4. Ensure all staff have access to PPE equipment if required
Although wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as fluid-resistant surgical face masks and disposable gloves is not required in non-healthcare settings, access to non-medical grade masks and gloves will still help to keep staff in the case that a pupil starts to display symptoms during the school day.
5. Discourage assemblies
As part of social distancing rules, staff members should be discouraged from holding assemblies. Large gatherings such as this can promote the spread of COVID-19, therefore you should consider promoting other methods of communication instead, such as in-class announcements.
If you would like to give your school a thorough clean ahead of students returning to the classroom, you can also find some more guidance to follow on the Gov.uk website.
While many questions remain regarding the long-term impact that the COVID-19 crisis will have on schools, at Utility Rentals we want to reassure our customers that we will still be here to support you. To find out more about how we can work with your school during the current social distancing measures, please contact our team.
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