Is caretaking a thing of the past?

[Twodogs64]

I was talking to my head a few weeks ago about the same thing .
She said to me a lot of schools don't have a caretaker the alarm coming takes the alarm off and on online ..
That's the future I guess
Twodogs

[eebagum]

After leaving the school I was at for I think 17 years a new caretaker took my place. Then another not long after. Heard even agency caretakers won't stay. All to do with the leadership team. Mainly the heads attitude to them. Got the t-shirt. And last time they advertised not one person applied. So they have a security company opening and closing for them. Costing them more than a caretaker. How do I know. Still in contact with some of the teachers. Oh and the head has them doing various caretaker roles. One checks toilet rolls and paper towels. Two out gritting a few weeks ago. Oh but it's ok leadership team don't have to do it. Caretaker gone from that school.

[Vera]

This is a common problem of the leadership team having no idea what a caretaker does.
All they see is the unlock and lockup, maybe some vomit cleaning and paper towel toilet tissue etc.

As far as they know the rest of the time we sit drinking tea and eating biscuits.

This leads to the question of "do we need a caretaker?" but more importantly it erodes the value of the caretaker in a school.

[OXSET]

Worth noting some of the larger trusts are moving away from traditional site services and centralising the lot. We shall be seeing more "hub managers" dealing with contractors / out sourced cleaning and maintenance soon.

[Gazza]

I have been a school caretaker for the past 15-20 years. 10 years in my current post, we have recently advertised for a new caretaking assistant, but I have only received 1 reply.
It strikes me that the position of school caretaker is a dying skill. Admittedly its not everyone's cup of tea, it doesn't help that heads of schools and teachers have generally no idea what goes into physically looking after a school, everything is supposed to be done bish bash bosh, 5 min and you should be finished, yet we all know this isn't the case.

What will become of schools when the last school caretaker/site manager retires? Does anyone else who has been in this game for a while find the same thing is happening?
2 schools near me have had their site managers leave due to the fact they cannot do educational establishments anymore.

I actually think its society in general, people no longer want traditional jobs for rubbish wages.... to many wannabe entreprenuers setting up little start ups and cottage industries means people are getting by selling frothy coffees and advertising on youtube and making tik toks....

in the last couple of months, we have had poor responses to a numbr of ads

T.A roles, cleaning roles, Teaching roles. we havent even replace our buisness manager who leaves at Easter....

i think were also seeing this in the trade industries too. Ive seen a number of posts here about how difficult we all are to find contractors these day.

[Keyolder]

This is a common problem of the leadership team having no idea what a caretaker does.
All they see is the unlock and lockup, maybe some vomit cleaning and paper towel toilet tissue etc.

Not just the school staff and SMT, the parents as well

On gate duty I got to know quite a few of the parents, and some of them were quite dismissive of the caretaker role. One parent I got to know quite well as he would often chat about worldly matters, football etc. One morning he said to me, you have a cushy job don’t you, get out of bed unlock the gates come back around 9 and stand by the gates. Go home wait till the pubs open then wander back around 3:30pm and stand by the gates again, then after the kids have gone lock the gates.
He didn’t believe me when I started telling him the meat and potatoes of the job, dismissing it as clouding over the truth…

[Dexter]

Absolutely agree with the posters who talk of the reduction in pay - it has been relentless and significant (nearly a third of real terms pay since 2010) for many of us. I think that the changes to the LGPS pension scheme have also take away from the attractiveness of the roles.

With the dwindling schools' budgets and non-replacement of staff (or reduced hours offered) it also means that more and more is being expected from those in post.

I have worked in education since I was 27 and I will retire, at 60, in just over 2 years time. I think that the year of rapid inflation dragged the pay situation into the light, for me. Now It makes you feel like a mug to think of the rewards offered for what you want to offer to meet expectations. If I was younger I'd be doing something else.

[PalaceEagles]

I read earlier online starting out as a caretaker you would be earning £20,000 per annum, an experienced caretaker would earn up to £25,000. People aren’t going to even consider it a career with those wages especially with the cost of living going up, the responsibility we have within a school, the funny hours we work, call out etc.

I was talking to my nephew at the weekend who is 9 and I asked him what he was going to go for a job, me being me I thought he would say maybe fireman etc nope a ‘gamer’. I looked at him and his dad and couldn’t believe it. Then I got talking to my son and he was telling me that there is a ‘YouTuber’ called Mr Beast and he can post videos online and get paid £500,000 for one video. No wonder we can’t attract people to the job.

[Handyman]

It definitely feels like caretaking is a thing of the past. At one secondary near me, they used to have a site Manager and three assistants. Then two of the assistants left, the HT in their infinite wisdom decided to tell the third they would not be hiring replacements and that they would just have to work three times as hard. Predictably that guy left shortly afterwards, leaving just the site manager to do everything. They advertised for an assistant which was basically unsuccessful for over a year, then the site manager left because he had had enough of getting abuse from the HT because obviously he was struggling to do the work of four people.

My HT is treating me appallingly and is forcing me out of my job. I am applying for everything I can and can't wait to tell them where they can stick my job. Her sidekick the BM keeps saying how easy the job is, hope she has to cover once I am gone, they have bullied a lot of other staff out over the past year and have really struggled to replace them.

[Vera]

It definitely feels like caretaking is a thing of the past. At one secondary near me, they used to have a site Manager and three assistants. Then two of the assistants left, the HT in their infinite wisdom decided to tell the third they would not be hiring replacements and that they would just have to work three times as hard. Predictably that guy left shortly afterwards, leaving just the site manager to do everything. They advertised for an assistant which was basically unsuccessful for over a year, then the site manager left because he had had enough of getting abuse from the HT because obviously he was struggling to do the work of four people.

My HT is treating me appallingly and is forcing me out of my job. I am applying for everything I can and can't wait to tell them where they can stick my job. Her sidekick the BM keeps saying how easy the job is, hope she has to cover once I am gone, they have bullied a lot of other staff out over the past year and have really struggled to replace them.

Problem is that covering whilst without the caretaker for them consists of unlocking locking and maybe a couple of statutory checks, so obviously to them the job is easy.
When I came here there had been no statutory checks for at least a year and virtually nothing was documented. but to the head and BM they were doing fine..

It's a hazard of the job where 75% of the things we do are never seen or even looked at by anyone else so they assume you only do the 25%.

Something will come along for you soon, I've always found that things that happen were almost meant to happen and those that don't come off are usually the things you don't want or need.