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School First Aid Kit Audit: A Term-by-Term Check, Restock and Procurement Calendar
Most school first aid kits get one proper look in the first week of Term 1, then drift for the rest of the year. Supplies get raided between incidents, the swimming carnival empties the ice packs, and expiry dates lapse quietly over the summer break. By the time anyone checks again, the kit that looked fine in February is missing half of what matters. A school first aid kit audit works best as a calendar, not a one-off checklist you tick once and forget.
The fix is to stop treating the audit as a task and start treating it as a rhythm tied to the four Australian school terms. Every check, restock and purchase order gets a home in the year.
How often should school first aid kits be checked?
Check every school first aid kit at least once a term, with a full audit at the start of Terms 1 and 4 and targeted restocks after swimming and athletics carnivals, camps and the winter sport season. Safe Work Australia's First Aid in the Workplace Code of Practice calls for kits to be kept stocked and regularly reviewed, because a school is a workplace under WHS law.
The Code does not set a fixed date on the calendar, which is exactly why so many kits drift. Tie the checking rhythm to the term structure and it stops depending on someone remembering. State term dates shift each year and by jurisdiction, so confirm your own against the published calendar, such as the Victorian Department of Education term dates.
Term 1 (late January to early April): the back-to-school restock
Start the year with a full audit of every kit on site. Six weeks of holidays means expiry dates have quietly rolled over and anything used at the end of last year was never replaced. Check packaging as well as dates: a sterile dressing whose packet has been crushed or torn in a crowded drawer no longer counts as sterile, even when the expiry is months away. Write the audit date on each kit's contents list, so whoever checks in Term 2 knows where the last check left off.
The items that vanish first are adhesive plasters, antiseptic wipes and eye wash ampoules. These are the everyday supplies that get raided between incidents and never make it onto anyone's list. Term 1 is also swimming carnival season, so check the sports and excursion kits now, and place any Term 1 camp orders early enough to allow delivery lead time.
Term 2 (April to June): winter sport and a mid-year check
Winter sport starts, so the sideline and sports first aid kits do the heavy lifting this term. Sweep them for used strapping, cold packs and dressings before the season builds. A lighter mid-year expiry check across the fixed kits is enough here, since the big audit already happened in Term 1.
Term 3 (July to September): carnival restock and Term 4 ordering
Athletics carnival season lands in Term 3, and the post-carnival restock is the predictable job: cold packs, wound cleaning supplies and dressings that got worked hard on the day. This is also the term to raise the procurement order for the Term 4 camp surge, well before the rush. If you want the seasonal hazard side of Term 3, the spring safety hazards in schools guide covers pollen, UV and camp risks; here the job is simply supply.
Term 4 (October to December): camp peak and the January order
Camp season peaks in Term 4, so excursion and camp kits need checking before each departure, not after. Close the year with a full audit that mirrors Term 1, clearing anything that expires over summer. The one job schools most often miss is placing the January restock order before the office shuts down, so every kit is ready for day one of Term 1 rather than waiting on a delivery in week two.
How to budget for school first aid supplies
First aid consumables are a small line item that behaves unpredictably when you leave it to ad hoc reordering. Spend clusters around the carnival and camp windows, so a single annual order rarely matches the real pattern. A procurement calendar smooths that out: one larger back-to-school order in Term 1, planned top-ups after the Term 3 carnival and before Term 4 camps, and a standing January order.
Costs depend on how many kits you run, where they sit and how heavily they get used, so pricing is best quoted against your actual kit list. Schools order through school ordering with school pricing applied, and refills are cheaper than replacing whole kits, so keep the contents topped up through kit refills rather than buying new. For what belongs in each kit in the first place, the guide on what to put in a school first aid kit covers the contents, and the one on how many kits your school needs and where covers placement across the site.
Put the calendar on one page
The whole system fits on a single sheet: four terms down the side, and the check, restock and order actions for each written against it. Print it, stick it inside the sick bay cupboard, and the audit stops living in one person's memory.
Keep the records audit-ready, not in someone's head
A term calendar tells you when to check. The other half is proof that you did, which is where the first aid compliance documentation for schools guide picks up the record-keeping detail. Whatever you use, record the date of each check, what was restocked and who did it, so the school can show its work when asked. If you'd rather keep those records in software than on paper, KitCheck is a subscription to our proprietary kit management software, where your own staff log in and manage their kits and expiry dates.
FAD assembles and supplies first aid kits to schools across Australia, and the whole point of a term calendar is that the right supplies are in the right kit before the incident, not ordered after it.
Put your school's restock on a term-by-term calendar and stock it from our school first aid kits range. To set up a school account or talk through your kit list, call 03 5443 2239 or email info@firstaiddistributions.com.au.