Cleaning
The nursery is committed to providing a safe, happy and healthy environment for children to play, grow and learn. Cleanliness is an essential element of this practice. All staff will be expected to follow a daily cleaning procedure checklist to prevent the spread of germs and infections. Staff should ensure that any mess made throughout the day in the rooms and across the nursery are managed and the housekeeper will provide assistance across the board when needed. The nursery provides a cleaner each evening who will check and report back to the management team regarding the cleanliness of the setting and the items used marked in the checklist.
Schools will have daily end of day deep cleans with specialist cleaning agencies who will use anti bacterial and anti viral cleaners to ensure floors, toys and surfaces are contaminant free. Deep clean takes place at least once a week.
Daily Cleaning Checklist
Outlines the different areas staff members are expected to check and clean on a daily basis. Each room has their own cleaning schedule with a dedicated member of staff on a day to day basis.
- Westminster Cleaning Form: https://forms.gle/HVbSBA6cXDv9b7w68
- City Cleaning Form: https://forms.gle/4ZYDzDA33PfA2dEE9
- Canada Water Cleaning Form: https://forms.gle/iZPdfXKF33E1TJcr8
Staff are expected to check and empty the refuse in their room at 13.30pm and 6.30pm each day. All refuse is to be taken down to the paladin bins which are allocated in the basement car park (city nursery). Staff are expected to dispose all waste in the correct bins, yellow bins are for nappies, green is for recycling and black is for general waste.
Daily Communal Checklist
These checks should be completed at 8am and at 6.30 pm each day. Staff are expected to check that the Staff room, children toilets, kitchenette ,Kitchen, nursery entrance and corridors are all clean. Staff will need to also ensure that their room has sufficient housekeeping products such as antibac, baby wipes,gloves,apron etc available at the beginning and end of the day.
Procedures
- Staff are expected to use the daily cleaning checklist to ensure all areas have been checked and cleaned.
- Staff are expected to check the nappy and general waste bins in their room each day at 13.30pm and 6.30pm and empty any bins which are half full. This includes bins in the children's toilet and the kitchenette.
- Staff are expected to use the communal daily cleaning checklist to ensure that all areas in the nursery are clean at the beginning and end of the day.
- Once areas have been checked and cleaned staff are expected to sign off their names. This will be checked by the manager the following morning.
- Every evening the cleaner will check the kitchenette,toilets,staff room and sign these areas off with comments on the daily cleaning checklist.
- Each morning the manager will review the daily cleaning checklist and communal cleaning checklist to ensure each area has been completed. The nursery manager will also look at the comments left from the cleaner to highlight any concerns the cleaner had regarding the nursery cleanliness. Failure to follow the checklist will result in a warning under the disciplinary procedure.
Resources,Linen,Equipment and Furnishing
The nursery manager will dedicate an additional 1-2 hours cleaning slot for each room on a weekly basis. During this time the staffer must take part in deep cleaning activities such as wiping the shelves, soaking and washing toys etc.
The bed linen and soft toys are sent to the approved laundry services twice a week for hot washing services.
Personal hygiene
Staff must follow the personal hygiene code at all times and encourage children to adopt the same good personal hygiene code themselves. Hands must be washed before coming into the facilities after the arrival to the premises. Other hand washing activities must take before handling food, after using the toilet or carrying intimate care activities for the children, after playing outside, wiping noses, messy play activities and after contact with animals. After noses have been wiped the tissue must be disposed off hygienically and hands must be washed afterwards with soap and water to prevent spread of the virus.
Cleaning
The nursery is committed to providing a safe, happy and healthy environment for children to play, grow and learn. Cleanliness is an essential element of this practice. The nursery will be cleaned daily and regular checks will be made to the bathrooms. These will be cleaned at least daily (more if necessary i.e. at lunch time). The nappy changing facility will be cleaned after every use and potties will be cleaned and sanitised with colour coded equipment after every use. Any mess caused throughout the day will be cleaned up as necessary to ensure that a hygienic environment is provided for the children in our care.
Kitchen
Staff are made aware of the basic food hygiene standards through appropriate training and this is reviewed every three years.
- Fridges to be cleaned out weekly
- Microwave to be cleaned after every use
- Oven to be cleaned out regularly and recorded
- Freezers to be cleaned out every three months and recorded
- All cupboards to be cleaned out monthly
- Fridge and freezer temperatures must be recorded first thing in the morning by the manager/cook and last thing at night
- All food to be covered at all times in and out of the fridge and dated to show when each product was opened
- Care must be taken to ensure that food is correctly stored in fridges
- When re-heating food, it should be over 75°C, checked with the probe thermometer and recorded, then cooled down before serving. Food prepared on the premises must be checked with the probe thermometer before serving
- Food served but not used immediately should be appropriately covered and placed in the fridge/freezer within 60 minutes. If this is not followed, food should be discarded immediately
- All opened packets to be dated when opened and placed in an airtight container e.g. baby food, raisins, cereal etc.
- Blended food should be placed in suitable airtight containers, named and dated
- Surfaces to be cleaned with anti-bacterial spray
- Only appropriate coloured kitchen cloths to be used (please follow the chart on the wall). These must be washed daily on a hot wash
- Windows protected by fly guards to be opened as often as possible along with the vents
- All plugs to be pulled out of their sockets at the end of each day and switches switched off where practicable (with the exception of the fridge and freezer)
- Children must NOT enter the kitchen except for supervised cooking activities
- Doors/gates to the kitchen to be kept closed/locked at all times.
Baby room
- Bottles of formula milk will only be made up as and when the child needs them. These should be cooled to body temperature (37°C) and tested with a sterilised thermometer to ensure they are an appropriate temperature for the child to drink safely.
- Following the Department of Health guidelines, we will only use recently boiled water to make formula bottles (left for no longer than 30 minutes to cool). We will not use cooled boiled water and reheat.
- Bottles and teats will be thoroughly cleaned with hot soapy water and sterilised after use in the steam washer.
- Content of ready made milk bottles will be disposed off after 1 hour.
- A designated area is available for mothers who wish to breastfeed their babies or who wish to express milk.
- Labelled mother’s breast milk will be stored in the fridge in the separate labelled box.
- If dummies are used they will be cleaned and sterilised. This also applies to dummies which have been dropped.
- All dummies will be stored in separate labelled containers to ensure no cross-contamination occurs
- Sterilisers will be washed out daily.
- Toys and equipment used in the baby room will be washed and sanitised at least weekly and more often where necessary (babies putting toys in their mouth, during colder seasons whilst having increased chances of spread of viruses etc.)
Nursery
- Staff must be aware of general hygiene in the nursery and ensure that high standards are kept at all times
- Regular toy washing must be taking place in all rooms and cleaning/sanitising activities recorded accordingly. Toys should be washed with sanitising fluid and rinsed with water afterwards.
- Floors should be cleaned during the day when necessary with final floor cleaning/vacuuming/sanitising activity being completed at the end of the day by the housekeeper. Vacuum cleaner bags (where used) should be changed frequently.
- Staff are requested to use the appropriate coloured mop for the task or area. Green-body fluids; yellow-classrooms; red-toilet/janitor areas; blue-kitchen area. The mop heads must be changed monthly.
- Only disposable towels/face cloths must be used to wipe children's faces.
- Low/high chairs must be cleaned thoroughly after every use. Straps and reins must be washed weekly or as required
- Every child should have its own cot sheet which should be washed at the end of every week or whenever necessary.
- All surfaces should be kept clean and clutter free to eliminate extra surface space for viruses and bacteria to spread.
- Children must always be reminded to wash their hands after using the bathroom and before meals. Staff should always encourage good hygiene standards, for example, not eating food that has fallen on the floor.
- Children should learn about good hygiene routines and why they need to wash their hands, wipe their noses and cover their mouths when coughing.
Staff rooms
- It is the responsibility of every member of staff to ensure that their staff room is kept clean and tidy
- Fridges must be cleaned out weekly
- Microwave to be cleaned after every use
- Surfaces to be wiped down daily
- All implements used for lunch or break to be washed and tidied away.