Security systems for schools
Specified around the incidents you actually have, not around a product catalogue.
Heads, business managers, site managers and DSLs
The people who have to justify the spend and live with the consequences.
Every school we survey has the same four conversations waiting: the front gate, the toilets, the keys nobody can account for, and what happens over half term. None of them is about terrorism, and none of them needs a piece of legislation to justify fixing.
We start by asking what has actually happened in the last two years. That conversation usually redirects half the camera positions somebody has already proposed, and it occasionally concludes that what you need is two sensors and an intercom rather than a system.
The incidents that come up in every school survey
The front gate
Somebody at the pedestrian gate at three o’clock and nobody at the office desk to answer.
Vaping in the toilets
The block everyone knows about, where a camera is never the answer.
Keys
How many exist, and who has them. The pause after that question is the business case.
A pupil off site
Where footage searchable by description beats an hour of scrubbing.
Lettings
A hirer with access to two rooms, or a key to everything.
Half term
Lead, copper, catalytic converters and the broken window that costs more than the theft.
Contractors
On site, unaccompanied, and not in the fire roll call.
Deliveries
Arriving at the one entrance nobody watches.
Safeguarding
Knowing who is in the building, reliably, at any moment.
Four things that are not marketing
We are an electrical contractor
Containment, cable, power and certification by our own engineers under the group’s NICEIC approval — which is why a door interlock with the fire alarm is a conversation, not a problem.
DBS-checked engineers
On every school visit. Stated here because it should not have to be asked.
We say no
If your existing cameras are fine and you need two sensors, that is what the survey will say.
The paperwork is included
DPIA starting point, signage and a retention recommendation, because a system without them is a compliance problem you own.
The front gate, almost always
The intercom is the change school offices notice within a day.
- Answered anywhere. On a phone, a browser or a desk station, so it reaches whoever is free.
- You can see who it is. A decision made on sight rather than on a voice through a grille.
- A reader built in. Staff badge at the same unit.
- Logged. The call, the decision and the door release, together with the footage.
Briefly, because it is being oversold to you
Your school is standard tier regardless of size — that is on the face of Schedule 1 — and the standard-tier duty is about procedures, not equipment. The Act does not require CCTV.
You are standard tier
Whatever your roll. A 1,400-pupil secondary is not enhanced tier.
It is not in force
Royal Assent April 2025; the SIA expects commencement in spring 2027.
Procedures, not purchases
The Home Office says those in scope can comply without buying specialist services.
So buy for the Tuesday
The gate, the toilets, the keys, the holidays. Those are honest reasons.
Use this on us
- Every camera position justified individually, and the excluded positions stated with reasons.
- Nothing in toilets or changing rooms, ever — sensors instead.
- A retention period, and what it means in storage terms on the model quoted.
- Access levels for staff, and how they are reviewed.
- A DPIA starting point and signage included.
- Cabling, containment, power and certification stated rather than assumed.
- A phased plan, so you can do the gate and the toilets this year and the rest next.
What a school actually buys this for
Every school we survey names the same four things, and not one of them is terrorism. Martyn’s Law is the reason the paperwork exists; these are the reasons the system gets used.
The intruder on site
Doors held closed from a phone, block by block, while the office is still on the call to the police. Free egress from the inside throughout.
Year 9 in the far toilets
A sensor reads the air where a camera must never go, and names the block to the pastoral team. It is a likelihood signal, not proof.
The adult nobody recognises
Sign-in, a photograph and a printed badge, so a stranger in a corridor is visible to every member of staff who passes.
Saturday football and half term
Hirers get access for their slot and no longer. The car park and bin store, where the out-of-hours damage actually happens, are covered.
Questions from people in your position
Where do we start if the budget is small?
Do we have to replace our existing cameras?
Are your engineers DBS checked?
Can you work in the holidays?
Start with a survey, not a quotation.
We walk the site, look at what you already have, and tell you what would genuinely help — including where the answer is that you do not need anything.
Book a free site survey Call 01727 822 833Tell us about the site
Send us a few details and an engineer — not a call centre — will come back to you within one working day.
This is not a monitoring centre
If you are dealing with an incident now, call 999. This line is monitored during office hours.