Work order systems for schools have a shape of their own: many requesters who are not maintenance people, several buildings with plant that has statutory checks, a small team or a contractor, and a summer when the big work is done. The system has to make requesting easy for a teacher, keep the register across buildings, hold the compliance record for boilers, fire systems and playground equipment, and report by site to a district office. This page sets out what to look for and what the record has to show.
Requests from people who are not maintenance staff
A teacher, a caretaker or an office manager raises most of the work, and they will use a form only if it is short: where, what, a photo, done. The system routes the request to the site's maintenance lead, who triages and raises the work order with a priority from the consequence. Requesters see the status without asking. A system that makes a teacher choose an asset from a register of a thousand items gets no requests and a lot of phone calls.
The register across buildings
Boilers, air handling, kitchens, lifts, fire and intruder systems, playground and sports equipment, plus the buildings themselves for the fabric items. Each building is a branch of the tree, so that a district office can read work by site and a site lead sees only their own. Statutory checks, which for a school are many, are preventive tasks with the certificate filed against the asset, and the overdue list by building is what the district reads.
The summer and the contractors
The big work is done in the holidays, which means the schedule has to raise it in spring with lead time for quotes and permits. Much of it is contractor work, so the work order carries the contractor fields: scope, certificate, next due. A system that only looks a week ahead is surprised by its own summer every year.
The record a school has to show
That the statutory checks were done on time, by whom, with the certificate. That a reported hazard was actioned and when. What was spent by site and by building fabric against equipment. Those three questions come from parents, inspectors and the district, and a work order system that files everything against the building and the asset answers them from one screen. The maintenance log worksheet on this site is the single-school version for a site not yet on a system.
Questions people ask about work order systems for schools
Does a small school need a work order system?
A single site with a caretaker can run on the worksheets on this site. A district with several sites wants the system for the reporting and the compliance file.
Should students or parents be able to raise requests?
Usually through the office rather than directly. The form is for staff; the office relays what parents report.
What is the most important report for a school?
The overdue statutory checks by building. It is the one an inspector will ask for and the one that should be empty.