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When helping children make the most of their formative school years, there's no better starting point than encouraging them to lead healthy and active lives from an early age. Whether that's helping them follow in the footsteps of their sporting heroes or giving them the tools to lead a healthy life, the gym is a great place for young students to realise their potential.
To help students grow, modern schools must offer the best fitness equipment and gym space they can. This means adapting training approaches, upgrading equipment, and even considering new layouts in some cases. To help schools bring this ability to fruition, we wanted to share five of our top tips to consider when upgrading or replacing school gym equipment.
Upgrading the Space
To help students actualise their potential it could be the right time for new school gym equipment or it could be time to expand the space. This could be due to numerous reasons including the school having ambitious sporting goals, wanting to support student wellbeing, or knowing that the time has come to improve the current facilities.
If the space is outdated, the gym may not be meeting the needs of everyone who wants to use it. Investing resources into upgrading the space shows a commitment to students' well-being by enabling them to reduce stress, increase enthusiasm for fitness, and ultimately contribute towards better learning.
The evolution of fitness equipment also applies to school gym equipment. If the space hasn't been updated in a while, there is a lot to gain. It's important to consider if the space caters to students of different ability levels. Simple fabric handle attachments could be added to make the equipment more inclusive for a wider range of students.
Consider Variety
Kitting out a gym with new equipment might be a must-do, but maybe the space could do with a more functional setup for training. When it comes to making the gym a more fun environment consider adding equipment such as a custom rig with monkey bars. This could add versatility to the space making it a more playful environment for students.
Outdated school gym equipment will undoubtedly result in lower levels of student engagement with physical education. If teachers can make these classes more fun for differing ability levels it can go a long way to improving the enjoyment of physical education.
Lastly, if the space isn't quite hitting the mark it could hinder in attracting prospective students. This could be a reason for receiving additional funding or requesting a bigger budget in the new financial year, especially if the space is using equipment which is more than five years old.
Consumable Items
Each piece of school gym equipment will have a different shelf life based on its level of use with strength equipment lasting longer than consumable items. Consumable items tend to be the first equipment pieces needing to be fully replaced as they wear more easily. Students are more likely to use gym equipment with more functional uses like sandbags, kettlebells, and dumbbells.
This results in these items wearing more easily than larger-strength machines as they see higher levels of use. Larger machines will also have scheduled maintenance for parts like belts and cables to extend the lifetime of the equipment, whereas consumables tend to be replaced once worn out rather than being maintained.
Having a budget in place to account for this is always a good idea as most warranties will see damage to this type of equipment fall under "fair use" or "wear and tear" meaning they will void the warranty altogether. Younger students may also not be as careful with the equipment which can speed up how quickly these items need replaced.
Holiday Period Refresh
It has been well-documented that physical education is a great tool for helping students with academic success. If the current school gym equipment is looking tired or the space isn't being utilised often enough, then maybe it's time to consider refreshing the equipment to help renew interest in the gym.
School gym equipment needs to be well-maintained which is why scheduling regular maintenance is the best way of keeping equipment in working condition. While equipment will see less use than in a commercial setting, there is a higher chance of misuse leading to accelerated wear and tear or damage.
It's best to schedule maintenance visits well in advance as gym equipment engineers are often fully booked weeks or months in advance. The best time to book this is during holiday periods like summer and Christmas, to minimise disruption during the school year. Scheduling in advance also allows for flexibility in case you need to reschedule helping to avoid last minute issues.
Holiday periods are also a great time to give the equipment a deep clean which we advise is best done a couple of times a year minimum on top of the regular weekly or monthly cycles. These deeper cleans should involve using brushes to clean the knurling, cleaning our air filters on cardio equipment, and lubricating moving parts like resistance mechanisms or belts.
Warranty
Understanding warranties for each bit of school gym equipment is a good idea. Warranties follow a similar pattern but there will be differences in what they do or don't cover. Understanding this makes it easier to identify when equipment parts need to be replaced or upgraded, but fortunately, this isn't something which needs to be remembered from the top of mind.
Regular equipment maintenance is probably the best route to reducing the chance of faulty equipment which could lead to an injury risk, especially with children. Certain manufacturers or suppliers will offer warranty packages to protect you against unforeseen costs and prevent you from being sat with out-of-order equipment.
Organising a warranty maintenance package when equipment is purchased will reduce the stress of remembering these finer details for every bit of school gym equipment at a later date. Booking at a time well in advance of schedule will not only help you make the most of the warranty but will ensure that it doesn't become void.
Be aware that manufacturer and supplier warranties will differ on some parts, but most won't cover elements they see as fair use through wear and tear. This can include parts like worn-out running decks, belts, and grips or handles which likely won't be covered in the warranty.
Lastly, it's important schools find a supplier that can offer quick equipment fix turnaround to fulfil warranty claims without delay. For example, we keep stock for the current and previous two generations of every machine we sell in our warehouses so we can fulfil warranty claims without delay.
Conclusion
Ultimately encouraging students to lead an active life is a habit which will serve them throughout their lives. By keeping the current fitness offering modern it helps students to realise their potential in a number of areas. Physical education will always be an important part of a school student's development as it teaches them key life skills like responsibility, accountability, and healthy lifestyle habits. To find our how we can help with your school gym equipment get in touch with us by filling in the form below, calling on 0333 2000 750 or emailing us at [email protected].
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