School Cleaning in Wellington
We clean schools, early childhood centres and training facilities across Wellington, Porirua, the Hutt Valley and the Kāpiti Coast.
Cleaning built around the school timetable
School cleaning is not office cleaning in a bigger building: the hours are dictated by the timetable, the surfaces take far heavier use, and the standard expected in bathrooms and food areas is higher because the people using them are children.
Waikanae Commercial Cleaning Services has been cleaning premises in this region since 1987.
Local Since 1987
Based at 6 Parata Street, Waikanae, cleaning premises across this region for nearly 40 years
Hours That Suit You
Monday to Friday, 7am to 9pm, so the work happens around your operation rather than through it
Rated 5.0 From 21 Reviews
Consistent quality, checked by regular inspection rather than assumed
What school cleaning covers
Daily
- Classrooms: desks, chairs, floors, and sanitising of high-touch surfaces
- Toilets and changing areas, cleaned and restocked
- Corridors, stairwells and entranceways
- Staff room, offices and reception
- Hall and shared spaces, reset ready for the next day
- Rubbish and recycling collection
- Food preparation and canteen areas where applicable
Term breaks and holidays
- Full hard floor strip, seal and polish while classrooms are empty
- Carpet cleaning across classrooms and corridors
- High-level dusting, vents, light fittings and window tracks
- Interior and exterior window cleaning
- Deep clean of toilets, changing rooms and food areas
- Exterior hard-surface cleaning of paths, courts and entranceways
Holiday work is where most of the heavy cleaning happens, because it is the only time the building is genuinely empty. Scheduling it properly is a large part of running a school contract well.
How we work in schools
Working around the school day
Most cleaning happens after the last bell. Our operating hours are Monday to Friday, 7am to 9pm, which covers both an after-school schedule and an early-morning one where a school prefers the building cleaned before staff arrive.
Some things need attention during the day regardless, particularly toilets in a primary school and any spill or hygiene incident. That is worth agreeing explicitly when the contract is scoped rather than leaving it to be sorted out on the day.
Exam periods and school events
Secondary schools have periods where the normal schedule cannot apply. During NCEA exams, halls and exam rooms need to be cleaned and set to a specific standard on a fixed timetable, and noisy work such as floor machines has to move elsewhere in the building or to another time entirely.
The same applies to production weeks, prizegivings, open evenings and sports tournaments. A school cleaning contract that cannot flex around those is a contract that will generate complaints every term. We agree the exam and event calendar at the start of each year and schedule around it.
Keys, access and who is on site
Cleaning a school means holding access to a site that has particular obligations around who is in the building and when. Cleaners and supervisors hold the keys or access cards, and supervisors train the cleaners on the alarm and lock-up procedure before they work on site. Tell us at the site visit who the school wants contacted out of hours.
Schools have their own requirements about contractor screening and sign-in, and they vary between boards. We work to whatever the school requires, and we would encourage you to ask any cleaning contractor to put their answer to that in writing rather than accept it verbally.
Products and children
Product choice matters more in a school than almost anywhere else, because of the number of children with asthma and allergies and the amount of time they spend in the same rooms. Where a school has a preference, or a policy, we work to it. Where it does not, we are happy to talk through what we use and why before anything is agreed.
What drives the cost of school cleaning
- Roll size and number of classrooms, which set the daily workload
- Number of toilet blocks, usually the largest single labour item
- Floor surfaces, and how much hard floor needs periodic stripping and sealing
- Whether holiday deep cleaning is included in the annual figure or quoted separately
- Hall and gym use, especially where the space is hired out in the evenings
- Site spread, since a school across several blocks takes longer than the same floor area in one
See how commercial cleaning is priced for how quotes are put together and compared.
How the standard is checked
A school is a large site cleaned quickly by several people at once, which makes it the setting where quality drifts most easily without anyone deciding that it should.
Sites are usually allocated to the same cleaner, so that person learns the blocks, the lock-up and the rooms that need more than the schedule suggests. A supervisor inspects the site weekly against the written scope, rather than only when a complaint arrives.
The school deals directly with our manager. In practice that is what makes a school contract work: a caretaker or office manager who can raise something on Tuesday morning and have it dealt with that night, rather than waiting for a monthly meeting.
We would encourage any school to ask a prospective contractor how often a supervisor will actually be on site, and to get the answer in writing. It is the question that separates contracts that hold up from contracts that quietly decline after the first term.
Frequently asked questions
Do you clean during school hours or after?
Mostly after, once students and staff have left. A daytime presence for toilets and incident response can be arranged where a school wants it, and is worth scoping explicitly.
What happens during school holidays?
The daily schedule pauses and the heavy periodic work happens instead: floors stripped and sealed, carpets cleaned, high-level dusting, windows and a deep clean of the toilet blocks. This is agreed and priced at the start of the year so there are no surprises.
Can you work around NCEA and exam periods?
Yes. We take the exam and event calendar at the start of the year and schedule around it, moving noisy work away from exam rooms and to other times.
Can you handle an illness outbreak?
We move to enhanced cleaning and disinfection focused on high-touch surfaces, bathrooms, kitchens, classrooms and shared equipment, and additional visits can be arranged as needed. We align what we do with public health guidance and with your own facility management plan.
Do you clean early childhood centres?
Yes. ECE centres have a different scope again, with more emphasis on sanitising surfaces at child height, sleep rooms, and food preparation areas.
Can we speak to other schools you clean?
Ask us when we visit. References are given with the permission of the school concerned.
Who supplies the equipment and consumables?
The equipment and cleaning products are ours. Consumables such as hand towel, toilet paper and soap can be included in the contract or left with the school office, whichever the school prefers. It is worth settling at the quote stage, because in a school it is a substantial line and it changes the annual figure.
How often is a supervisor on site?
Weekly. A supervisor physically attends and inspects against the written scope. We would suggest asking any contractor for that answer in writing.
Are your cleaners screened before they work in a school?
Yes. Every staff member goes through identity verification, reference checks, police vetting, a health and safety induction, infection control training and site-specific training before working in an educational facility, and they are supervised on an ongoing basis after that.
REQUEST A FREE SITE ASSESSMENT
Call 04 293 5662 or 027 452 1788, email info@waikanaecleaning.co.nz, or use the contact form. We will walk the site, agree a written scope covering both term time and holidays, and quote against it.