Daycare Cleaning Checklist PDF
This daycare cleaning checklist is a free, printable PDF for rooms, bathrooms, the kitchen and outdoor areas, with a column for each weekday so staff can initial tasks as they go. It is built on the cleaning frequencies in Staying Healthy, 6th edition, and fits on two A4 pages, one set per room each week. Below the download you will find how to use it, how to turn it into a simple cleaning roster, and the mistakes that make checklists useless. More practical tools are in our childcare cleaning guides collection.
What belongs on a daycare cleaning checklist?
Every surface that Staying Healthy says to clean daily, grouped by room so staff can work through it in order: bathrooms and change areas, playrooms and toys, the kitchen and meal areas, and the entry and outdoors. Each task gets a box for each day and a set of initials.
- Change mat cleaned, rinsed and dried after each change
- Toilets, seats and potties
- Basins, taps and towel dispensers
- Floor around the toilets and bench
- Nappy bin emptied and relined
- Gloves, towel and spill kit restocked
- Tables and chairs after each meal
- Today's toys washed, set-aside box emptied
- Door handles, switches and gate latches
- Low shelves and cubbies on a rotation
- Floors swept and mopped, carpet vacuumed
- Cot rails and sleep mats in sleep rooms
- Benches cleaned, then food-safe sanitiser
- High chair trays, straps and buckles
- Sink, taps and splashback
- Fridge handles and microwave
- Floor swept and mopped
- Bins emptied and relined
- Front door glass, push plate and sign-in screen
- Entry mats lifted, floor beneath cleaned
- Outdoor tables and benches
- Sandpit raked, checked and covered
- Paths and verandahs swept
- Rubbish picked up from the yard
The frequencies behind the list come from Table 3.1 of Staying Healthy, 6th edition: toilets and basins, the surfaces hands touch all day, door handles and any toy that goes in a mouth, every single day, with toys used that day washed at the end of it. Floors are weekly at minimum in the table, but on a daycare checklist they belong in the daily column, because babies crawl on them and meals end up on them.
How do you put the checklist to work?
Print one per room each week, fill in the room name and week, pin it where the work happens, and have whoever does each task initial it straight away. At the end of the week, the room leader checks it and it goes into the cleaning folder.
- One sheet per room, per week
A single checklist for the whole centre gets lost and nobody owns it. A sheet on each room's noticeboard belongs to that room's team.
- Adapt it before you print
Cross out tasks that do not apply and add your own, such as a baby room's bottle prep or an outdoor water trough. The PDF leaves space for notes.
- Initial at the time
Ticking a whole day at 5.55 pm from memory is how records stop meaning anything. Initial each task when it is done.
- Note what was not done
A missed task with a reason is honest and useful. A blank box with no explanation raises more questions than it answers.
- Check and file weekly
The room leader reviews the sheet on Friday and files it. Any pattern of missed tasks goes to the nominated supervisor.
Kept like this, the checklists become the daytime half of your cleaning record. The evening cleaner's log covers the other half, and together they show an authorised officer that hygiene is handled all day, not only after close.
How do you turn the checklist into a cleaning roster?
Split the tasks by time of day and by who does them. Educators handle what must happen during the day, such as change mats after each nappy and tables after meals, while the evening cleaner takes the deeper, slower work once the rooms are empty.
| When | Who | Typical tasks |
|---|---|---|
| As it happens | Educators | Change mat after each nappy, spills, mouthed toys into the set-aside box |
| After meals | Educators | Tables, chairs, high chair trays, floor under the table |
| Midday check | Room leader | Bathroom look-over, towel and soap restock, visible dirt |
| After close | Evening cleaner | Bathrooms, floors, touch points, the day's toys, kitchen, entry |
| Weekly rotation | Evening cleaner | Low shelves, cubbies, skirting boards, glass at child height |
| Term break | Cleaning team | Carpets extracted, walls washed, every stored toy done |
Kitchens deserve their own short list if the service cooks on site. The cook's food safety program sets out much of it, and the checklist's kitchen section simply makes the cleaning part visible to everyone else in the building.
Family day care educators can shrink the idea to fit a home: one sheet for the care areas of the home, split into what happens during the day and what happens after the last child goes home. It keeps the record simple and shows a coordinator exactly how hygiene is handled.
What goes on a daycare kitchen cleaning checklist?
The food contact surfaces first, then everything hands touch while food is being made: benches, chopping boards, sinks, taps, fridge and oven handles, the microwave, high chair trays and the floor. Food contact surfaces are cleaned, then sanitised with a food-safe product, and left to dry.
- After every use
Benches and boards used for food, high chair trays and bibs, bottle preparation areas and anything that touched raw food.
- End of each day
Sinks and taps, appliance handles, the microwave inside and out, bins emptied and relined, and the floor swept and mopped.
- Weekly
Fridge shelves once the cook has cleared them, oven fronts, splashbacks and the tops of cupboards.
- Recorded
Kitchen cleaning sits in the cook's food safety records as well as on your checklist, so the two should agree.
Services that feed young children are usually Class 1 food premises, registered with the local council; the Victorian food business classifications set this out. That makes the kitchen the one room where the cleaning record is likely to be read by two different inspectors, so it pays to keep it tidy and consistent.
A practical tip: pin the kitchen checklist inside a cupboard door rather than on the wall above the bench, where splashes and steam make it soggy within a week. The cook initials it at the end of service, and the evening cleaner initials the floor and bins once they have been done.
Why do cleaning checklists stop working?
Because they become too long to finish, too general to check, or so routine that people tick them without looking. A good checklist is short enough to complete, specific enough to verify, and reviewed often enough that people know someone reads it.
- Fifty lines per room
Nobody finishes a list that long on a busy day. Keep daily tasks to the ones that matter and move the rest to a weekly rotation.
- "Clean room" as a task
A vague line can be ticked without doing anything. Name the surface: change mat, taps, high chair trays.
- Ticked at home time
End-of-day ticking from memory is not a record. Initial each task when it happens.
- Never looked at
If no one reviews the sheets, staff soon notice. A weekly glance by the room leader keeps them honest.
When should the evening list go to a professional cleaner?
When the after-close part of the roster keeps getting squeezed: educators staying late, floors done in a rush, toys left for tomorrow. Daytime hygiene should stay with the room team, but the evening list is a job in its own right and is often done better by someone whose only task it is.
A professional cleaner should work from the same checklist, or one that matches it room for room, and sign their own log each night. That way your folder shows one system across the whole day, whoever did each part of it.
See what nightly daycare cleaning covers, room by room, and how each visit is logged.
What do readers ask once they have the checklist?
The two questions that arrive most often after someone downloads it.
01How often should each checklist task be done?
02Which products does the checklist assume?
- Staying Healthy (6th edition, NHMRC 2024), Table 3.1 and the sections on toys and nappy changing
Your list, done every night.
After-close cleaning with a signed log to match your checklist.