Why schools should not have lockers

Here’s an easy lesson in making your school a more attractive prospect for future pupils. By providing complete locker facilities, children will be able to enjoy a lot of benefits:

School lockers will provide safe storage for sports equipment and musical instruments that some students may need during or after class

Premier Lockers offers bespoke storage solutions. Our lockers can be purpose built to cater to unusual items such as musical instruments, badminton equipment and other sports gear. Providing storage for this kind of equipment is vital. Let us start with the benefits of promoting activities within the sports department.

Sport plays a positive role in student development:

It enhances physical health Boosts academic achievement Promotes higher self-esteem Reduces behavioural problems Improves psychosocial patterns

Music helps students in so many ways:

On top of that, lockers provide security for valuable items, maintain privacy, lighten the load on student’s shoulders, and reduce distractions.

Strong focus on hygiene in 2020

One simple way to promote good hygiene in the school environment is by reducing the number of items that enter the classroom from outside environments. Even after we move on from the pandemic, responsible hygiene practices will remain a key focus for schools and the wider community.

High-value items need to be kept secure

As state governments around the nation examine mobile phone bans in public school classrooms, schools need to supply secure quality school lockers to ensure that these valuable devices remain safe.

And it goes beyond mobile phones. Students are carrying tablets, laptops, sports equipment, musical instruments, and other valuable personal items. And it’s more important than ever when it comes to keeping cases of theft and damage to a minimum.

“Lockers provide security for valuable items, maintain privacy, lighten the load on student’s shoulders, and reduce distractions.”

Ultimately, investing in student lockers helps to prevent the unfortunate and often stressful situations that occur when expensive items go missing. So it’s well worth making the upfront investment in return for happier students, teachers, and parents.

Privacy is important to young people

Privacy is something that students also value. The concept of privacy teaches students about mutual respect, defines value in their belongings, and builds trust by giving them access to a space that’s theirs alone.

At Premier Lockers we know that lockers plays an essential role in guaranteeing privacy by creating a place in schools where students can house their personal belongings, rather than having them out in the open.

Lighten the load

The provision of lockers also contributes to the musculoskeletal health of students. Numerous studies have documented the effects of spinal, shoulder, and neck pain, and the effect on their gait from lugging around heavy bags.

For students carrying particularly heavy loads including textbooks and electronic devices, on top of their everyday possessions, the strain of this collective weight can contribute to back pain and discomfort. Lightening the load with school lockers from Premier Lockers allows students to focus on their studies without the distraction of physical discomfort or pain.

Take away those distractions

One of the key reasons mobile phones have been banned by some Australian state governments is the distraction they cause. This can also be attributed to other possessions.

For many children, it’s not an option to leave their phones at home because they are used to communicate with parents before and after school. But given mobile phones are often high-value items, school administrators need to provide quality lockers.

“School lockers need to be tougher than lockers used in other environments.”

Where lockers are not provided, students effectively have no choice but to take them with them into the classroom, ultimately leading to distractions.

What to look for in a school locker

At Premier Lockers, we work with schools throughout Australia to supply their school locker needs. School lockers need to be tougher than lockers used in other environments. Consider what sort of items your students will need to store, or whether they will be indoors or outdoors.

You might have to consider a range of sizes depending on the equipment that might require storage and of course the cost of the school lockers is important. But don’t focus solely on the price. The lockers need to be sturdy to handle the years of wear and tear that will be placed upon them.

At Premier Lockers we have the widest range of school lockers in Australia, made from plastic or metal and featuring different locking systems. Our school lockers come in a variety of sizes, and we even have lockers that incorporate mobile phone charging stations.

Premier Lockers offers lockers for every category and in a variety of finishes and we have supplied lockers to some of Australia’s largest companies. View our school lockers and student lockers now, or call us on 1300 202 557 to speak with our team about how we can help you.

“Ugh, my backpack is so heavy. I don’t want to carry it,” said everyone who has received two massive textbooks on the first day of school and is forced to carry them around in their heavy backpack for the rest of the day.

Most people choose to suffer through it, while just a few others get lockers. This year in Journalism, I was forced to get a locker to save space in the classroom, due to an increase in class size, which placed the issue front and center in my mind.

At Linganore High School and several other high schools in the area, students only choose to use lockers if they sign up for them or if they are required to get one for a particular class.

Having to put things in a locker during a class can cause a hassle when I need something from it and, depending on what’s going on in the classroom, I can’t access materials. It also takes time that could be used on learning when we have to pack up and get to our next class, and there just isn’t enough time. Although, lockers do save a lot of space and encourage student organization…

At this point in time I realize that there are some bold pros and cons of using lockers.

One reason lockers shouldn’t be used is budget. Why do schools need to spend all of this money on locker construction when only a few students use them? The cost of unused lockers could be used to supply the school with materials like computers and other teaching aids that would actually be of use.

According to an article in USA Today by Elizabeth Crisp about lockers, a high school in Mississippi completely removed lockers from their school, which saved them $200,00 and created an increase in school security.

“There’s no need for them, and I don’t like lockers,” said junior Alyssa Yammarino.

There are only five minutes between class, and there is nowhere near enough time to get to class on time if your class is on the opposite side of the school… and don’t forget the need for bathroom breaks!

Junior Emma Wynkoop said, “I don’t have time to go from a class to a locker and then across the school.”

With lockers, if a student forgets materials, the supplies that are necessary to have during class are hard to access once a student is in class.

Another reason lockers shouldn’t be used is security. Nowadays, weapons and drugs within schools are a problem. It would be quite easy to hide these things inside a locker rather than carry them around in a bag all day. At this point, lockers would be more of a hiding spot rather than a place to place academic materials that students have to carry around each day.

Considering the amount of supplies students are forced to carry throughout the school day, maybe there are some pros after all…

One pro of school lockers is physical health.  Students who carry heavy book bags can do damage to their spines after a few years of carrying excessive weight on their backs each day.

When weighing students book bags in the Journalism classroom, the average weight of the book bags was 14 lbs, which could be strenuous for a student a period of time.

According to Jane E. Brody in a New York Times article, the heavy weight can cause, “stress fractures in the back, inflammation of growth cartilage, back and neck strain, and nerve damage in the neck and shoulders.” It’s harder for students to focus on studying and school work when they have an aching back and shoulders.

If there is a break from carrying around a book bag throughout the entire school day, injuries that occur from the heavy weight could be dramatically decreased, and thus be better for students in the future.

Another PRO is security. During some parts of the day students are forced to leave things like school supplies and electronics for gym class, a locker would provide security when the student isn’t near.

Most people love being able to carry their backpacks around because they’re convenient. Since there are more cons than pros when it comes to having lockers, so maybe we are fine without them.