Caretaking and Maintenance 

To ensure the health, safety and welfare needs of pupils are safeguarded and to comply so far as is reasonably practicable to health and safety regulations on a site as big as CHS - the maintenance duties are shared across the Caretaking, Cleaning, Electrical and Grounds team who either deal with maintenance issues straight away or bring them to the attention of the Head of Estates for long term remedial maintenance action. 

The Caretaking team deal with furniture, keys, portering, plus the following key areas:

To ensure that the buildings and facilities are maintained to a high standard, the Estates Department conduct dynamic risk assessments, active monitoring and routine inspections in between the statutory inspections.

The Cleaning Team and Caretaker team are also responsible for spotting any defects, but all members of the School community are reminded of their responsibilities in respect of reporting where they spot  a hazard or near miss.  This means that reactive remedial action can be taken where narrowly avoided accidents are identified, with the aim of avoiding accidents occurring.  Our Accident Reporting Procedures provide more information about "near misses" and these can be reported through the online "Report an Accident or Near Miss" form on the Staff Site homepage.

The Caretaking team ensures that furniture, chairs, fixtures and other pieces of equipment and fittings are all kept to a high standard so that the School is a safe environment for all.  Day-to-day requests for general maintenance and repair work is submitted through the Estates Helpdesk and an rolling programme of checking is done during the school holidays.

If you see anything that Estates need to be made aware of please report via the Estates Helpdesk. 

In line with HSE guidance, all electrical equipment and appliance are routinely maintained through a series of tests known as "PAT" testing.   

The electrician within the Estates Department  manages internal lighting which is all LED.

The campus has external lighting around key entrances and main buildings to ensure the people can safely enter and leave the premises.  Lights on roads and internal walkways are set up with photocells so lights automatically come on when it goes dark.  There are also supplementary time clocks to override this where necessary. 

Generally lights come on 5am-8.30am and 3.30am-10.30pm.  Other external lighting around School is set up with photocells sensors, and 3G and All-Weather pitch floor lights are manually operated.

Please click here to read more about the Campus Security Plan and how the external lighting programme supports this.

The Estates Department is responsible for carrying out regular inspections of the specialist areas in school - such as science laboratories equipment, sports equipment, workshops etc. and will organise with Heads of Departments to ensure that annual servicing takes place and specialist contractor repairs are managed as required.

 Equipment and facilities in DT are maintained by  Workshop Safety and Maintenance UK , Flamefast  and Hobarts.  Records are kept by the Head of Department.