CCTV for schools is very different from CCTV for retail and commercial environs. The parameters that usually define a school CCTV system are:-

Most schools are usually large and sprawling sites with building design and layout creating lots of little hidden areas.

These dark corners and areas allow bullying and other activities to take place during the day and also allow unobserved access points into the school at night.

To cover such sites with CCTV would be cost prohibitive, certainly in a single phase. Therefore any cameras installed need to be carefully positioned to provide maximum coverage with reference to the amount of information obtained and the areas of the site protected.

        Very Hard Wearing

Life for many cameras is not an easy one and cameras in schools, particularly internal cameras, can experience a hard life. While outright destruction is rare many of our schools have corridors with low ceilings making camera locations in these areas easy to tamper and fiddle with.

Therefore cameras in these areas will have to be carefully chosen to prevent this without blowing the budget. A camera on a bracket screwed to a false ceiling will last for years in a fast food outlet, but would not last five minutes in a school.

Requiring little operator time to run

Without the benefit of a security guard or a receptionist with spare time, most schools will not be able to spare large amounts of ‘manpower’ to operate the system, as much as possible the system must run automatically until called upon. If new power domes or pan, tilt and zoom cameras are fitted then if possible alarm sensors should be wired into them. If a camera is pointing in one direction and an sensor detects movement in another, perhaps an entrance way out of bounds, the camera will then automatically move to that area to view the activity and then revert to its home or parked position.

Another useful development is that of digital recorders. Install a unit with a large enough hard disk and you will be able to record for days or even weeks without having to change tapes and manage them.

If your school has a network many hard disk recorders can be purchased configured so that they can be connected into the network. This would allow more than one person to monitor the system via their own computer.

So while the control equipment may be located and operated from the office and during the lunchtime operated by a duty member of staff, the Deputy Head could also be monitoring a particular area from his/her office via the network.

Requiring minimal time to find an incident

The majority of incidents captured by school CCTV systems are minor pupil behaviour problems that require reviewing and dealing with via the normal disciplinary channels. Therefore the reviewing process wants to be very simple and straightforward.

That is why for a school system being used in this way digital recorders are the ideal solution. You simply address the machine (and with some machines this can be via the network), punch in the time you want and within seconds it will replay what it has recorded.

But the big advantage is that while you are reviewing a recorded event the digital recorder is still recording all cameras. Allowing you to view incidents as soon as they have been reported rather that having to wait until the end of the day to review several incidents as on a tape system.

If you require further background information on this topic we recommend you visit the CCTV section of our website, within this page you will find ‘CCTV Products’ which has pages on all the key elements of a CCTV system.

Also you will find there our ‘CCTV Jargon’ page which is useful to help understand all the terms we as an industry use.

Should you require specific further information or wish to talk to someone about CCTV you can either:

Email: Info@Securasound.co.uk

or

Telephone: 01948 667600