School and Nursery Cleaning in Hampshire: Checks, Schedules and What It Costs

This guide is for school business managers, site managers and nursery owners in Portsmouth and South Hampshire who are choosing a cleaning contractor or checking the one they have. The prices come from the pricing model behind every quote we send. The safeguarding and hygiene points come from the Department for Education and the UK Health Security Agency, linked so you can read them yourself.

What does school cleaning in Hampshire cover?

A term-time contract covers the rooms pupils and staff use every day: classrooms, corridors, toilets, the hall, the staff room and offices. It happens outside the school day, usually from the end of after-school clubs into the early evening. A kitchen that cooks school meals is usually the catering contractor's job, so check where the line sits before you compare quotes.

A typical daily spec for a primary school looks like this:

• Toilets: toilets, urinals, basins, taps, flush handles and floors cleaned every visit, with soap and paper refilled in every cubicle.
• Classrooms: floors vacuumed or mopped, bins emptied, tables and door handles wiped. Tables need clearing first, so agree with teachers what gets left out.
• Corridors and entrances: floors cleaned, with entrance matting vacuumed. In wet weather this is where most of the dirt comes in.
• The hall: swept and mopped, because it's often PE, lunch and assembly in one room.
• Staff room and offices: worktops, sink, desks and bins.
• Touchpoints: door handles, push plates, light switches, handrails and the reception hatch.

What checks should a school cleaner have?

The school must be sure every contractor has the right level of DBS check before they work on site. That's set out in Keeping children safe in education 2026, the Department for Education's statutory guidance, in force since 1 September 2026. A cleaner with no checks must never work unsupervised.

Paragraphs 368 to 373 of the guidance cover contractors. In short:

• The school should write its safeguarding requirements into the contract with the cleaning company.
• A contractor whose work gives them regular contact with children needs an enhanced DBS check. One doing regulated activity with children needs the enhanced check with the children's barred list as well.
• Where there's no chance of regular contact, the school decides if a basic check is enough.
• The school should check a contractor's identity every time they arrive.

Evening cleaners in an empty building may never meet a pupil. Breakfast clubs, after-school clubs and holiday schemes change that. Agree the level of check with the cleaning company before the contract starts, not after the first visit, and ask how they'll tell you when a new cleaner is coming. Private and voluntary nurseries work to the EYFS statutory framework rather than this guidance, but the same question applies.

How often should a school or nursery be cleaned?

Every school day for toilets, classrooms and the hall. Children use a building harder than adults do, and a toilet block left for two days will be the first thing parents mention. Weekly and termly tasks sit on top of that: high dusting, skirting boards, glass and the jobs that need furniture moved.

The UKHSA's guidance on preventing and controlling infections in children and young people's settings says a cleaning contract should have daily, weekly and periodic schedules, with each task, its frequency and who does it written down. It also says to name a member of staff to monitor cleaning standards. That's a sensible rule: one person who walks the building and talks to the cleaner, rather than complaints arriving from five directions.

Here's what five evening visits a week cost on our guide prices for three typical sites:

These are guide prices for out-of-hours visits, which cost 11% more than daytime cleaning, with travel and products included. The times are total cleaning hours, not clock time: a big site needs more than one cleaner to finish in an evening. The real figure comes from a walkthrough, because two schools of the same size can be very different jobs: one has carpeted classrooms and a single toilet block, the other has hard floors, a swimming pool changing area and toilets off every classroom.

What happens in the school holidays?

The holidays are when the jobs that can't be done around pupils get done. With the building empty, furniture can be moved, floors can be machine cleaned and left to dry, and every high surface can be reached. We scope and price holiday deep cleans as their own job, separate from the term-time contract.

Most schools want a full reset in the summer and a lighter one at Christmas and half-terms. A summer list usually looks like this:

1. Clear and clean every classroom, including inside cupboards and trays the staff have emptied.
2. High dust lights, vents, window frames and the tops of display boards.
3. Wash walls, doors and frames at child height, where hand marks build up.
4. Descale toilets, urinals and taps, and clean behind and under fittings.
5. Deep clean carpets and machine clean hard floors, then reseal where the floor needs it.
6. Clean internal glass and the inside of windows that can be reached safely.
7. Leave rooms set out the way staff need them for the first day back.

Book it early. Building work, decorators and floor contractors all want the same weeks in August, and the cleaning should come after the trades, not before. For what a deep clean involves on any site, see our deep cleaning service.

Is a nursery cleaned differently from a school?

Yes, in two ways. Younger children put hands and toys in their mouths, so touchpoints at floor and table height matter more. And some cleaning happens during the day, by nursery staff: the UKHSA guidance says changing mats should be wiped after each use and at the end of each day. The contract cleaner does the end-of-day clean around that.

Three things to agree with any cleaner before they start at a nursery:

• Colour-coded cloths and mops. The UKHSA says there's no legal requirement, but it's good practice, with separate kit for the kitchen, toilets, play rooms and the office.
• Where products are kept. Cleaning chemicals should be locked away or taken off site, never left in a room children use.
• What the staff clean and what the cleaner cleans. Toys, sleep mats and messy play areas are usually staff jobs. Write it down so nothing falls between the two.

How we clean schools and nurseries in Hampshire

Anyone we send to a school or nursery is DBS-checked before they set foot on site, confirmed with you before the contract starts. Term-time visits run before staff arrive or after the site empties out, and access goes through your site manager with the same procedure every visit. We aim to keep the same cleaner on your site, so pupils and staff aren't meeting new faces every week.

Every job starts with a free walkthrough with your site manager. Within 48 hours you get a written spec and a fixed price for the term-time contract, with the holiday deep cleans priced separately. Every visit is logged in the client portal against that spec, so the member of staff who monitors cleaning has a record to check. See our school and nursery cleaning page for the areas we cover across Portsmouth and South Hampshire.