Essential Elements of an Effective School Cleaning Contract

The starting point for any school cleaning contract is a precise and detailed scope of work. This should specify exactly which areas are to be cleaned, at what frequency, and to what standard. 

A thorough scope of work for a school should account for:

•   Classrooms and teaching spaces, including desks, chairs, floors and interactive boards
•   Corridors, stairwells and entrance areas
•   Washrooms and toilets, which typically require higher-frequency attention
•   Dining halls and kitchen areas
•   Sports halls, changing rooms and gym facilities
•   Staff rooms and administrative offices
•   External areas, including playground surfaces and entrances

Each area should have a cleaning schedule attached to it, distinguishing between tasks carried out daily, weekly and during scheduled deep cleans, typically over school holidays.

Schools have a duty of care to their pupils, and that extends to anyone working on site, including contracted cleaning staff. Any contract you enter into should explicitly confirm that all cleaning operatives have undergone enhanced DBS checks and that the contractor maintains up-to-date records. It should also set out what happens if a member of staff is replaced, to ensure there is no period during which unvetted individuals have unsupervised access to the building.

Beyond vetting, look for contractors who invest in training. Cleaning in an educational setting is not the same as cleaning an office. Staff should be familiar with child safeguarding awareness, appropriate behaviour around pupils, and the specific hygiene requirements that apply to schools.

A contract that lacks any formal mechanism for measuring performance gives you little recourse if standards slip. Look for agreements that include regular audits or inspections, with documented outcomes that are shared with the school. These might take the form of scheduled walkarounds with a site manager or estates lead, or a digital reporting system that logs completed tasks and flags any issues.

Key performance indicators should be agreed at the outset. These might cover consistency of cleaning standards across different areas, response times to reactive requests, and attendance or cover arrangements when a member of the cleaning team is absent. The last point is particularly important. 

A contract that has no clear cover provision means that if a cleaner calls in sick on a Monday morning, the school simply goes without.

Schools operate on a very different schedule from most commercial premises. Term-time cleaning requirements differ substantially from holiday periods, when deep cleans, floor treatments and high-level work are best carried out without disruption to lessons. A well-structured contract should reflect this, building in holiday deep cleans as a core deliverable rather than an expensive add-on.

There should also be provision for reactive cleaning needs, whether that is a spillage during the school day, a health-related deep clean or additional requirements around events such as open evenings and parents’ evenings. How these are handled, and at what cost, should be clearly set out in the contract.

One of the most common frustrations schools report with cleaning contractors is a lack of a clear point of contact. When something goes wrong or a request needs to be made, who do you call? A good contract should name a dedicated account manager or supervisor responsible for your site, along with contact details and expected response times.

Equally, the contract should set out a formal complaints or escalation process. If an issue is raised and not resolved within a reasonable timeframe, there should be a clear route to senior management at the contractor. This gives schools confidence that their concerns will be taken seriously, and it holds the contractor accountable in a way that an informal arrangement simply cannot.