Premises Manager at Katherine Warington School

To manage and maintain KWS premises, providing a safe, secure and professional environment for students, staff and visitors. Act as Lead Key Holder for the school. 

Main areas of responsibility 

Building Operations 

● Manage all aspects of security of the school premises (including opening and securing the school buildings and wider site). 

● Maximise the utilisation of building management systems to ensure optimal systems operation and maintenance. 

● Monitor utilisation of gas,electricity, water and sewage systems, to achieve best value for the school and contribute to positive environmental targets. Carry out the routine maintenance and reading tasks for heating, lighting, water, fire, and lightning protection 

● Monitor the daily activities of the external cleaning contractors to ensure contractual compliance and quality of service. Follow up on service user complaints and issues. Regularly review the contractual KPIs via periodic audits. Advise the ABM of contractual non compliance. 

● Establish, review and monitor all ‘out of hours’ call out responsibilities. Work with the Lettings Manager on the call out rota, escalating issues to other management as required. 

● Maintain central building knowledge systems, both manuals and IT based. Review building plans and update where necessary. 

● Manage Grounds Maintenance and external site matters, including pitches and gardens. Monitor the safe utilisation of school parking facilities as provided. Ensure a clean and tidy appearance is maintained, providing a pleasing welcome to all visitors to KWS. 

• To oversee the Cleaning Contractors, acting as the primary liaison between the school and cleaners and the Management Team. 

● Manage the School vehicles. Ensure only qualified persons drive the vehicles, monitor servicing, maintenance and MOT/Insurances 

Customer Service 

● Establish productive working relationships with colleagues. Communicate operational requirements to them and accept feedback from building users 

● Manage the school porterage service, providing staff service for the proper location of equipment and furniture to suit customer needs. For example; servicing the exams season with appropriate furniture, managing the porterage needs of Lettings clients, in liaison with the Lettings Team. 

● Engage contractors for work that cannot be done in-house, ensuring that the school procedures for procurement and safeguarding are followed. 

● Ensure the maintenance of internal spaces providing a good learning environment and prioritising the needs of students and teachers. 

● Monitor the external catering provision, working with the Business Managers to review quality of provision and compliance with the contract. 

● Monitor classroom condition, arrange regular painting and maintenance programme, provide advice to teachers re student behaviour and looking after the school. Staff Management 

● LineManage the Premises team, including casual staff as engaged. 

● Prepare rotas, review and approval annual leave requests and ensure the school has safe and sufficient levels of staff for the tasks required. 

● Carry out staff appraisals as per KWS policy and ensure targets are set in collaboration with staff and regularly monitored. 

● Arrange appropriate CPD for Premises staff commensurate with the nature of their duties. 

● Work with the Lettings Manager to coordinate requirements for external bookings. To be a member of the KWS Lettings Whatsapp Group and respond to Premises related issues outside of school hours if required. Financial Management 

● Manage the Premises budget in line with the school Financial Handbook. 

● Undertake tenders and manage other procurement methods to ensure best value for school expenditure. 

● For capital projects, work with the Business Managers and design teams to monitor change management and cost control. 

Estates Strategy 

● Work with the School Business Managers and associated contractors to produce regular updates to the School Estates Strategy, for approval by the Trust and external funding bodies. 

● Maintain the calendar of Planned Maintenance and approved Capital Projects, ensuring the execution of same by suitably qualified external contractors. 

● Manage the work of all external contractors on site, ensuring they are appropriately DBS checked, their access is controlled and they possess the correct work permits for their duties. Monitor the quality of their work and assess the same against agreed work specifications. 

● Ensure effective communication between staff, contractors and others as appropriate. 

Health & Safety 

● Lead on the review and updating of the school Health and Safety Policy and Procedures, guided by legislation and the work of any external auditors. 

● Monitor the compliance across school of the H&S Procedures, recording and reporting breaches and ensuring these are followed up to completion. 

● Arrange updated H&S training across the school, as required. 

● Manage operations, equipment and substances in line with COSHH, RIDDOR and any other updated legislation or regularity guidance. 

● Oversee the entries and monitoring of the school Accident Book and building ‘lessons learnt’ into procedure and best practice. 

● Lead on termly and annual audits and reviews. 

Risk Management 

● With the Assistant Business Manager, prepare and maintain the overall school Risk Register, Risk Management Strategy, and Premises Risk Assessments. 

● Monitor the compliance of all school departments with the Risk Management Policy, working with managers to identify risks and assist them in operational strategies to mitigate same. Identify and report any issues of non-compliance. 

● Regularly update the Risk Management software programme with incidents and reviews. Feed knowledge into the Risk Management cycle. 

Additional Information 

This is a key role within the school which is likely to involve access to highly confidential information. All staff are expected to comply with the school’s Safeguarding Policy. 

This post is classed as having a high degree of contact with children or vulnerable adults and is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. An enhanced disclosure will be sought through the Disclosure Barring Service as part of the school’s pre-employment checks. 

This job description sets out the duties of the post at the time it is drawn up; it will be reviewed regularly and may be subject to amendment or modification at any time after consultation with the post holder. 

It is not a comprehensive statement of procedures and tasks but sets out the main expectations of the School in relation to the post holder’s professional responsibilities and duties. The Headteacher may vary the duties from time to time without changing their general character or the level of responsibility entailed.