We’ve talked about why its vitally important to carry out essential maintenance in schools. With the governments continued pledge to fund the maintenance of school buildings in order to support the delivery of education it’s clear that school maintenance should be a high priority for all schools.
Between 2010 and 2015 the Coalition Government spent almost £18 billion on school buildings. This included £5.6 billion direct to schools and those responsible for their maintenance to allow them to take forward their own building improvement programmes. The Government will be investing a further £23 billion in the school estate between 2016 and 2021, including £4 billion to fund condition improvement and maintenance in schools between 2015 and 2018, “helping ensure children can learn in the best environment possible, helping them to achieve their full potential”.
The Education Funding Agency have said “All school buildings should facilitate education within a weather tight and safe environment. The environment has the potential to adversely affect education, but this risk can be significantly reduced with appropriate maintenance. Deferred maintenance often results in substantial costs required in the future. Every type of school building should have effective stewardship and a maintenance regime to ensure safe condition and a secure environment”.
Summer Is A Great Time to Get Your School Maintenance Carried Out
With Summer approaching it’s a great time to start to think about what maintenance and/or refurbishment work you need to carry out. When children and staff break for the summer holidays it means that classrooms are empty and work can be done without causing disruptions to staff, children, teaching and classes.
Your school maintenance and/or refurbishment work is something that needs to be planned in advance. Leaving it to the last minute is a mistake.
With the six week summer break coming up it’s all too easy to think you’ll have plenty of time to have your maintenance or refurbishment work carried out. However this isn’t the case. School maintenance and refurbishment work takes time and planning.
Consider how long it will take to put together a detailed brief on what work needs to be done, then factor in the planning stage, add in manufacture lead times and the time it will take to do the work and you’ll see why work needs to be planned well in advance.
By planning in advance work can be carried out during the summer and you can avoid school and class interruptions when the new school term starts in September and staff and children can concentrate on teaching and learning rather than trying to work around noise and workmen!
Now’s the time to start!
Start the Planning Stage
Put together what work needs to be done. A detailed list is a great place to start. You can then fill in additional information as to which work should take priority and add any additional information you think will be helpful.
Think about:
- Carpentry (fitting fire doors, building furniture)
- Plumbing (replace broken toilets, repair leaking taps)
- Wall cladding / Decoration
- Suspended ceilings
- Flooring (repair or replace)
- Electrical (PAT testing, lighting, cabling, data cabling)
- Fixtures and fittings (fitting rails, computer trunking, installing equipment)
- Health and safety signage
With your detailed plan in hand JBH School Refurbishments can work with you to tailor a Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) package specifically for your school.
Our PPM packages take into account the most common needs of school property maintenance jobs, including:
- Repairs caused by general wear and tear
- Electrical testing
- Health and safety
Talk to JBH Refurbishments
We can schedule an initial site survey with their team of qualified engineers, plumbers and technicians, with the aim of working with you to gain a full understanding of the scope of the work involved and to create a complete schedule of works.
With more than 25 years of expertise including a full awareness of the government’s baseline designs for schools/best practise advice on how to plan a refurbishment JBH Refurbishments are well qualified to provide effective school maintenance and refurbishment for your Kent or London school.
We also understand the need for schools to comply with UK health and safety law to ensure a safe working environment for both staff and pupils. To meet this need we include a risk assessment of all work to be carried out, method statements, specifications, scheduled costs and a record of works in all of our school maintenance packages so you know you’ll be in safe hands.
This is what our school customers have to say:
“I would like to thank you for all your hard work. JBH Refurbishment have successfully fulfilled our needs from fitting external ramps for a disabled student to making and fitting doors for a gym equipment in our auditorium. I’m extremely pleased with the quality of the work and hope to continue to work with you in the future. Many thanks.”
“We would like to say a big thank you to JBH for supplying and fitting our classroom ceiling. You not only supplied a very competitive price, you accommodated us with fitting the ceiling at the best time convenient to a school, half term! We would not hesitate to recommend you and would certainly use your company again.”
Call us on 0333 207 0339 or contact us to find out more about how we can help meet your Kent or London school maintenance or refurbishment requirements, on time and within budget.
