School access control
The honest starting question is not which doors to control. It is how many keys are out there, and who has them.
Nobody knows where the keys are
Ask a site manager how many keys to the sports hall exist. The pause is the answer.
Schools accumulate keys the way they accumulate everything else. Staff who left in 2019, a caretaker who cut a spare, a coaching company that had one for a season, a contractor who never gave one back. Rekeying costs thousands and the problem returns within two years.
Access control replaces that with a list you can edit. A leaver is removed in seconds. A letting gets access to the hall and the accessible toilet on Saturday between nine and one, and nothing else, and it expires by itself.
That is the argument. Lockdown is a genuine benefit on top, but the keys are what pays for it.
You do not control every door
The right answer in most schools is between six and twenty doors, not every leaf in the building.
The main entrance
Which is really the intercom conversation as much as the door.
Gates
Pedestrian and vehicle, which is where the perimeter is actually breached.
Block entrances
The doors between outside and inside, rather than every internal door.
The sports hall and dining hall
Because they are let, and lettings are where control is lost.
Plant, server and chemical stores
Where restriction is a genuine safety matter.
The office and finance
Small, cheap, and the ones an insurer asks about.
The case that pays for itself
Almost every school we survey is losing money or control here.
Time-limited access
The hirer's credential works on Saturday morning and not on Sunday night.
Only the doors they need
Hall, foyer, toilets. Not the science block.
A record
Who came in, which door, when they left. Which settles a dispute in one screen.
The rest stays locked
Rather than the whole site being open because one group is in.
Every time, without exception
Locks release on fire alarm activation. Emergency door releases and break-glass units stay where the fire risk assessment puts them. Doors on an escape route are not locked in the direction of escape.
This is designed with your fire risk assessor, tested at handover and documented. We install fire systems as a group, which is why we treat this as the starting point rather than a caveat at the end of a quotation.
What a school asks about
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do staff need a card? | Card, fob, PIN or a phone. Most schools issue cards and let senior staff use mobile credentials. |
| What about supply staff? | A day credential that expires by itself, which is far better than a key that does not. |
| Do pupils get access? | Usually not, though sixth forms sometimes do for a common room or study block. |
| What if someone loses a card? | Revoked in seconds from a browser, and a new one issued. Compare that with a lost key. |
| Does it work in a power cut? | Controllers have battery backup and doors fail to the state agreed in the fire strategy. |
| Can we do it in phases? | Yes, and most schools should — entrances and gates first, then blocks. |
Most of the value is on ordinary Tuesdays, not in an emergency
Lockdown is why access control gets signed off. Leavers, contractors, hirers and the sports hall key are why somebody is glad it was.
- A leaver is one click. Switched off across every door and every site, instead of a lock change and a box of fobs nobody returned.
- Phone, card or fob. Staff use the credential they will actually carry, and you are not buying a printer to issue a temporary pass.
- Doors on a timetable. The sports hall unlocks for the letting and locks after it, without the caretaker driving in.
- Every event has its footage. A door held open shows you the clip, not just a line in a log.
Questions we get asked
How many doors do we actually need?
Can it integrate with our fire alarm?
What about our existing door hardware?
Sources
Everything on this page is taken from these. Checked 25 September 2026.
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.
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