Caring for school environments is the duty of all users. If care is not taken, classrooms, walkways, toilets and school yards can quickly become littered and grubby. Most schools emphasise the need for students to properly dispose of rubbish. There are rubbish bins inside classrooms and buildings and strategically located around school, in toilets as well as communal areas.

It can be extraordinarily difficult for schools to maintain a clean, litter free appearance. A drive past some schools, particularly late in the afternoon, reveals a scatter of paper, plastic cups and other rubbish. A proliferation of rubbish detracts from the grounds appearance, giving the impression that all students are litterers. That is true only of of a minority.

Awareness of the need for classroom organisation and tidiness should be part of student development. In many classrooms there is a roster, assigning students to specific tasks. They might include the following:

• Cleaning whiteboards

• Delivering and collecting notes from the office

• Taking lunch orders to the canteen

• Collecting lunch orders from the canteen

• Tidying shelves and classroom storage areas

• Giving out and collecting work books

• Collecting recyclable materials.

All students take responsibility for:

• Tidy desks and personal storage areas

• Stacking their chairs at the end of the day

• Disposing of food scraps and their own rubbish into bins

• Putting litter into outside bins

• Personal hygiene including toilet flushing and hand washing

• Using classroom bins rather than floors for pencil shavings and scraps of paper.

Some would argue that attitudes of cleanliness and tidiness should be automatic. However, recognising effort and rewarding enterprise can help reinforce personal and civic attitudes. Recognition of class responsibility for care and maintenance of school appearance might include the following:

• The awarding at assembly of a mascot that ‘visits’ the tidiest classroom until the next assembly.

• Recognition of the class that looks after the verandahs and public areas adjacent.

• Giving small rewards to children caught ‘doing something good’ when it comes to environmental care.

• Presenting class or principal’s certificates to classes and children who always do the right thing when it comes to school and classroom appearance.

Schools have cleaning contracts. Contractors attend to daily and weekly cleaning together with a ‘spring clean’ during each long holiday period. However, it is up to students and those using the school to look after and take pride in their facilities. Along the way, habits of cleanliness and tidiness that should last a lifetime, are reinforced.