Education
Galliford Try has many years' experience of delivering services within the education sector. We currently provide a total facilities service to 13 schools accommodating over 10,000 children and young people from pre-school age to college students.
The services provided include the mechanical and electrical and fabric maintenance of classrooms, science laboratories, canteens and gymnasia; refurbishment and modification projects; grounds maintenance; cleaning and janitorial services; porterage; pest control; waste management; energy management.
Bedford Schools
Galliford Try provides a total facilities service to two secondary schools in Bedfordshire under a 30 year PFI contract. The larger of these schools, Samuel Whitbread Community College comprises five separate buildings housing a total of up to 1,800 pupils between the ages of 11 and 18. Harlington Upper School is a specialist science college accommodating up to 1,500 students.
Galliford Try is responsible for the delivery of all hard and soft facilities management services using a dedicated management team and helpdesk, and a team of directly employed caretakers.
The services provided include mechanical, electrical and fabric maintenance of classrooms, science laboratories, canteens and gymnasia; refurbishment and modification projects; grounds maintenance; cleaning and janitorial services; porterage; pest control; waste management; energy management. Our scope also includes delivering all of the catering through a directly employed team of cooks and catering assistants.
Previously both colleges offered a range of options that were deemed unsuitable in the current climate of promoting healthy eating to school children, such as high fat processed food, fizzy drinks and chocolate. Previous attempts to improve the healthiness of the menus had been meet with a decline in the number of pupils eating school meals. The Galliford Try team was responsible for proactively redesigning all of the menus so that all meals and snacks served within the schools are healthy and nutritious, and crucially that the meals appealed to children’s palates.
This has resulted in far greater take up of school meals and positive feedback from pupils and parents and has has significantly helped Bedford Schools achieve "Healthy Schools" status.
Additionally, school dinner money has become a thing of the past at Harlington Upper School and Samuel Whitbread Community College. The introduction of new biometric technology has enabled the catering team to charge pupils for their lunch by planting their finger on a scanner at the till. The biometric print involves the measurement of a number of points on a finger which is then converted and stored as a unique number. This displays the pupil’s name, class and current cash balance held within the system and the amount spent is deducted from the account and the new cash balance is displayed.
The new system, which enables staff to monitor lunch trends with ease, also provides anonymity for the children who are claiming free meals. It also enables the catering team to serve meals faster which means pupils can spend longer socialising during their breaks. The system also discourages the misuse of dinner money outside of school in shops etc and also alleviates associated problems with the use of cash in schools, such as loss, theft and bullying.
Birmingham Schools
Galliford Try provides a total facilities service to 11 schools in Birmingham accommodating around 6,000 students, under a 30 year PFI contract. The services we provide include 24/7 emergency response, repairs, maintenance, grounds maintenance, caretaking, cleaning and life-cycle management. We deliver the services through a directly employed labour force, for whom we provide the appropriate training and development.
We are also responsible for managing the life-cycle replacement programme for Birmingham Schools. We work closely with the schools management teams to ensure that life-cycle investment is used to target problem areas rather than following a strict forward replacement plan. In this way the schools see the greatest benefit from their investment and we are able to most efficiently maintain the systems and fabric whilst ensuring that the schools remain aesthetically pleasing.
Perry Beeches School saw this benefit when our team brought forward the replacement of flooring. The original carpets were badly soiled by chewing gum which had proved extremely difficult and costly to remove through the cleaning regime. The carpet was replaced with robust vinyl flooring which will be much easier and most cost-effective to clean and maintain.
We take a joint approach to tackle some of the problems endemic in inner city schools such as litter. We have worked closely with Perry Beeches to address this issue, identifying the best type and position of litter bins and helping to pinpoint exactly when littering was most prevalent.
The Head Teacher of Perry Beeches, Liam Nolan said: “Working alongside Galliford Try means that our school can focus on our core business, learning and teaching, knowing that the buildings and site issues are being professionally handled."