Every commercial property owner should strive to continuously improve their building and amenities, school owners being no exemption.
Over time, a school building’s structure can degrade, break down, and develop signs of wear and tear. This isn’t only unsightly but can also be a major safety hazard—something you and many others wouldn’t want for legal and safety reasons.
Besides increasing safety, enhancing your school property helps teachers and students perform at peak productivity levels.
When the property is well-designed and armed to support the learning environment, there will be minimal room for distractions, and health risks will be minimal. There will also be space for better facilities and amenities, all contributing to productive student learning.
With that said, this begs the question: how can a school property owner enhance the school to facilitate learning?
We got you. This article will outline six ways commercial property owners can improve their schools’ offerings to maintain their competitiveness in the local community.
Let’s start!
Landscape and Improve Outdoor Amenities
Remember to consider the power of plants in beautifying your school property. A well-crafted arrangement of plants and trees can bring life to a school’s front lawn, creating a welcoming atmosphere that kids and teachers can look forward to when they walk past it.
As such, if your current school lawn is barren and devoid of plant life, make it a priority to spruce up the space. Talk with landscaping experts to find the best plants, trees, and shrubs to elevate your outdoor area. Once you have a good outdoor blueprint, execute it and hire gardeners to maintain it.
However, your outdoor space isn’t just about creating a magnificent garden filled with lush plants. It’s also about using practical yet aesthetic decoration and instalments to improve the quality of life for students, parents, and teachers whenever they’re outside the school building.
To spice up your outdoor space, consider many practical additions. One example could be a pavilion where students can hang out with their friends or wait for their bus. Depending on the quality of its design, it could also serve as a school’s centrepiece.
Another great instalment that’s more cost-effective is a shade structure like COLA structures with Greenline.
These structures, like pavilions, can shade a wide area, such as an outdoor seating zone, shielding students and teachers from direct sunlight and rain. You can work with shade structure installation services to design and construct a shade structure that meets your needs.
Improve Parking Facilities
Does your school’s lot get extremely crowded during pick-up and drop-off times? Are there many double-parked cars or cars parked many metres away? Are the road conditions in the parking lot subpar?
If so, it may be a sign to upgrade your property’s parking facilities. A well-organised parking facility improves the quality of life of everyone who frequently goes to the school, allowing them to arrive quicker and more smoothly. This includes teachers, parents, and students alike.
To improve your parking facility, consider renovating it during the off-season, like summer break or Christmas. You can expand the number of parking slots, make clearer signages, and designate wider drop-off zones to help facilitate better pick-up and drop-off activities.
If your school is congested, consider rerouting traffic within your roads with proper signage to make it more efficient.
Furthermore, if some of your parking lots have poor-quality finishes, consider refreshing them with cement to increase your property’s professionalism and lessen the risk of car scratches from loose gravel and other materials.
As simple as it is, upgrading your parking lot does wonders for your school’s image. This can help keep your teachers and students happy while allowing your property to remain competitive in the current market.
Enhance Security Measures
Investing in security equipment and staff is critical to ensure the safety of the school’s premises. This keeps your school assets safe and ensures the well-being and safety of the students and staff.
Besides improving and tightening security protocols, we urge property owners to purchase security equipment such as comprehensive surveillance systems and access control systems to prevent and dissuade unauthorised personnel from entering key areas.
Strategically place this equipment in entrances, exits, and areas with plenty of foot traffic so that in the event of an incident, you’ll have access to the video footage and be able to act accordingly.
The outside of the school should also follow strict security measures. Consider investing in a boom barrier to control who can enter and exit the premises. Alternatively, you can hire trained security personnel to protect everyone on campus and respond to emergencies.
Add Recreational Areas
Enhance your school property is to renovate it and turn it into recreational areas where students and teachers can play or relax.
If you don’t have one yet, consider installing an outdoor playground with safe play structures and fitness equipment suitable for children of different ages.
Consider repurposing an unused field into a sports field. You can turn it into a soccer field, a basketball court, a swimming pool, or a running track—it’s up to you!
Having a shade structure above these designated zones also helps ensure that players are safe from the elements and can play regardless of the weather conditions.
Consider setting up a room for school rooms to look like a theatre for events and performances. You can also invest in new furniture and make a lounge for students and teachers.
Expand More Classrooms
Does your property have plenty of underutilised space? Do you have the budget to undergo major renovations? Is your student body expanding year on year, and you’re at the brink of exceeding the school’s maximum allowable limit?
If you answered yes to all of these questions, the best course of action is to build more classrooms.
Increasing the number of classrooms can help you accommodate the growing number of students interested in applying to your school. It helps alleviate overcrowding, making learning more comfortable and accessible to students of all backgrounds.
These classrooms can be traditional or cater to a specific practice.
For instance, you can use unused space to create a science lab without a dedicated science room. Does your school lack a computer room, and do you wish to renovate an existing underutilised room into one? You can renovate that space into an IT lab.
If adding more rooms isn’t possible, consider renovating existing ones to accommodate growing class sizes. Doing so can set your school for further growth and success.
Install Smart Technology
As a school property owner, you should invest in tools and technology to elevate a student’s learning experience. Technology can provide precision, accuracy, and speed to many administrative tasks, creating an environment more conducive to learning.
There are many ways a school can leverage smart technology within its premises. For instance, classrooms can have smart projectors that can easily receive and display visual information for everyone to see.
Property owners can also invest in smart lighting and HVAC systems to optimise energy consumption (lowering utility bills).
Besides that, your school’s workforce can also benefit greatly from technological tools. Computers with digital software can help enhance user productivity for various staff tasks, like attendance checking, test grading, and other classroom management duties.
Implementing smart technology can foster an efficient and more robust learning environment. This, in turn, can put your school on the radar of many prospective families looking to enrol their child in a new educational facility.
We hope we’ve helped!
