TEACH is a Multi-Academy Trust of primary schools comprising two infant schools, two junior schools and an Initial Teacher Training Centre. The academy trains up to 30 primary school teachers per year in Canford Heath, a suburban area of Poole, Dorset. Almost 1500 pupils, ages 4yrs to 11yrs, attend the four schools.

Problem & Solution

The Trust’s Health and Safety Coordinator faced a challenging task to provide an effective lockdown alert system for each school. Luminite’s Nexus critical alert range was chosen to provide a wireless solution, negating the need for a hard-wired system which would be costly in terms of resources and installation.

Luminite supplied a mixture of internal and external units meaning that no matter where the initial alert point was triggered and due to ‘flood technology’, all pupils and staff both inside and out would hear the voice alert and see the flashing blue beacons. Nexus lockdown units are deliberately blue in colour to differentiate them from fire beacons and there are 32 sounds to choose from to further differentiate them from fire alarms. The fact that the Nexus system could be installed by the Trust’s own Site Managers was a significant advantage, as their installation was quick and easy requiring no specialist or technical skills.

The TEACH Trust H&S Coordinator said:

“The Nexus system was installed without any disruption to the school day by the Site teams, following simple instructions supplied by Luminite who were available throughout for back-up support. After fully preparing our pupils for the event, we successfully completed lockdown drills without causing any distress to pupils or staff. There are no ongoing maintenance costs, other than a 3-yearly change of batteries and we would recommend the system to other educational establishments.”

Laura Grainger from Luminite commented: ‘We are conscious that especially in the current climate, school budgets must be spent wisely and we were happy to supply advance demo units to the school in order for them to test thoroughly. A consideration for the TEACH Trust was that they could easily add units to the system if needed and Nexus allows them to do this.’

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Needing to keep over 17,000 students safe, the University of Dundee decided to go with the IndigoVision solution supplied by Authorised Partner Scottish Communications. Wondering if your current security surveillance system is fit-for-purpose?

We are a campus that is about 72 buildings. We’ve got close to 17,000 students and about 3,000 staff members. The other part to that is that we are very centrally located downtown urban university, and of course that being said, we also don’t have a wall around the university.

IndigoVision allows us to spend our time and our resources helping people. The video intercom assistance points that we have that are integrated with IndigoVision through Control Center, they are rolled out strategically around campus, and when somebody activates that button it automatically activates a two-way video intercom. But sadly, that video intercom is about this big and it doesn’t give us a very good overall picture. So, by tying them into IndigoVision we are able to create a trigger to activate the closest PTZ camera that would turn and zoom in on the big picture view of what’s going on.

We may have 300 cameras but we only have six people on staff, but having one person who mans the Control Center means he can sit here and watch 36 cameras kind of at the same time. So instead of needing 36 people, we have 36 cameras and one person who’s monitoring them.

Campus Security, Adam speaking.

Control Center ties everything together. So, you can have an access control software, you can have a CCTV software, you can have a million-in-one different software’s, but if you have to flip between five or six of them all you’re doing is wasting time, especially in a critical incident response. You want everything as streamlined as possible, and for us, it’s that Control Center that has been that ribbon that has tied them all together. We want our officers out doing 101 other things, not sitting at a desk trying to figure out how to work a software.

The fact that the IndigoVision Control Center platform is so easy to use and it’s very easy to learn and it’s quite intuitive, means that my officers don’t have to waste time. We have all the cameras build onto a map as little icons, so as an incident moves through campus, instead of trying to scroll through a hundred cameras on a list, our officers can just click the next camera on a route and follow an incident as they move through our campus. When incidents happen, seconds count.

We’ve had an excellent partnership with the University of Dundee for over five years now. University of Dundee have vision in where they want to be in three years’ time, in five years’ time and in ten years’ time. And they share that vision with us, and they share their operational requirements from now and for the future.

IndigoVision is very responsive, they stand behind their product, but beyond that, they’re willing to work with you to make sure that your system is absolutely fit for purpose, and that’s a key thing when you’re looking for a partner.

Quality Essential Distribution are exclusive distributors of the Indigo Vision range please call us to discuss your bespoke requirements.

Wireless Lockdown System Installed at St. Joseph’s Primary School

St. Joseph’s Catholic Primary School is a vibrant and engaging mid-size primary school with 189 pupils in Halifax, West Yorkshire. The school is highly regarded both academically and socially and places an emphasis on the teachings of the Catholic religion. At the heart of the school is a caring and creative learning environment where all students are made to feel safe. St. Joseph’s recently approached D-Tect based in Leeds, to install a lockdown system to be used in the case of an emergency or threat to children and staff.

For this particular site, a mixture of internal and external call points and sounder/beacons were used with the Master call point situated in the main school office. Three external sounder/beacons were placed around the playground and entrance with a further seven units sited inside the school. Using a proven, secure mesh protocol, when one Nexus unit is activated, it triggers all units in range to sound an audible alert accompanied by a flashing beacon light.

Nexus lockdown units are blue to differentiate them from traditional fire alarms. In line with recent Ofsted guidelines, which state that a lockdown alarm must be distinctive in sound from a fire alarm, there are 32 sounds to choose from. There is also a voice variant available which will sound a lockdown message which can be customised by the school. The caretaker at St. Joseph’s was able to advise the engineers of the best positions for the Nexus alert points. As a result, the installation was completed within a few hours.

QED customer, D-Tect, install Nexus Wireless Lockdown System

Given the high costs involved in wiring a traditional system, both in terms of manpower and installation costs, D-Tect were delighted to be able to offer St. Joseph’s a competitive price for the wireless lockdown system. At the same time, they were commissioned to install an internal public address system for the school’s announcements.

Natalie Marshall, Director at D-Tect commented: “With the introduction of new Ofsted guidelines many schools and colleges are looking to introduce an efficient lockdown system with minimum disruption to their existing systems already in place. It is in this regard that the Nexus lockdown system comes into its own with its unique features. Our campaign offering safety and security checks to schools and colleges within the Yorkshire Region has proved to be a great success, with St Joseph’s being one of our first installations. We have now expanded our coverage to the remainder of the UK, and plan to provide suitable solutions to many more schools and colleges throughout the country.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYDHVxDp-5c

Quality Essential Distribution (QED), in Preston, supplied the Nexus units to D-Tect. QED remained on hand to provide technical expertise and support during the installation.

View the Nexus Lockdown System here.

Please contact us if you have any questions about the Nexus system or would like to discuss your bespoke requirements.

Call: 01772 336 111
Email sales@qedgroup.co.uk

TEACH Multi-Academy Trust Installs Nexus Lockdown System

Problem & Solution

The TEACH Trust H&S Coordinator said:

IndigoVision security surveillance for universities: University of Dundee

The Luminite wireless lockdown system provides an easy, time-saving solution for St. Joseph’s Catholic Primary School

Wireless Lockdown System Installed at St. Joseph’s Primary School

QED customer, D-Tect, install Nexus Wireless Lockdown System

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