The Client
Pil Primary School is located in Bridgend, South Wales and has approximately 230 pupils between the ages of 3 and 11. The school building has a main entrance plus two doors onto the playground. There are also two independent portakabin-style classrooms.
The Challenge
The school’s main entrance was considered to be insecure during school hours. Due to the position of the reception office, it wasn’t always possible to detect people entering through the main entrance, and parents had been regularly found wandering around the school corridors unchecked. This risk to health and safety needed to be resolved.
Other school entrances were protected by keypads, but their security had been compromised by students memorising the PIN’s and sharing them with others. Furthermore, the keypads didn’t support the automatic unlocking of doors during breaks to allow the children to come and go as they needed.
A reliable means of managing visitors and controlling access throughout the school was required.
The Solution
Bridgend based building technologies installer, Pro-Install Wales Limited chose Norpass3 as the ideal solution to control access throughout the school. All external doors were fitted with proximity card readers for entry, with push-buttons for exit. The door controllers were connected to a standard PC over the school’s IT network. Staff members were issued with proximity cards to allow them access throughout the school. The system automatically unlocks the doors for morning arrivals, breaks and lunch times to allow children to circulate freely at those times. For the rest of the school day, the school is completely secure, preventing unmanaged entry by parents or any would-be criminals. The school redesigned the entrance area, locating the reception office adjacent to the main entrance. From there the receptionist can operate remote door release buttons to control visitors’ access through the main entrance and from the reception area to the classrooms.
The safeguarding and wellbeing of our children at Pil Primary School is of paramount importance! The access control system allows us to control entry to the school using the intuitive Nortech software and hardware. The system is easy to use and manage and Nortech provide an excellent after sales service. Neil Pryce, Head Teacher,Pil Primary School.
The Benefits
- Proximity cards offer an increased level of security.
- Lost or stolen cards can be quickly disabled and replaced.
- Visitors can be managed in a more professional manner, increasing both safety and security.
- Automatic unlocking of doors at key times of the day help staff to concentrate on other duties.
- Adding/removing cards and assigning access permissions is very easily carried out from the head teacher’s office.
- Existing security alarm key fobs may also be used for access control, making security more efficient for key-holders.
Printable (PDF) Version