Case Study: Learning a Lesson in the Use of CCTV in Schools

Hayes School is situated near Bromley, Kent and has over 1600 pupils with buildings spread over a large area. The school had a simplistic black and white CCTV system with 2 cameras in the Reception building and 4 cameras with views of the grounds.

States Kieran Osborne, Headmaster of Hayes School, "It was important when Hayes School decided to select a company to advise, install and maintain a sophisticated CCTV system that they had the knowledge and professionalism to be able to do this well. In addition we were looking for good value for money in comparison to other suppliers. Kent and Sussex Security have certainly proved their worth in all fields and we are very pleased with their performance and efficiency."

Hayes School took the cost of improvements into consideration and decided to split the development into five phases. This is to culminate eventually with the provision of probably about 64 cameras along with much improved recording, viewing and operating facilities. As the CCTV system was to be installed in phases, KSS used NVT cable which allowed them to use one multi-core cable (20 cores) as opposed to one coaxial cable per camera. This makes installation much simpler and faster. The cable can be “tapped into” from any point, so additional cameras can be easily installed in the future allowing total flexibility.

Phase One was installed two years ago and increased the cameras to 16 in one integrated system built into a CCTV operations room. Later Phase Two was completed and ten more cameras installed. Four were used to cover the entrances and car park of a building used for normal lessons during the day and then evening classes after school when the rest of the school is closed. The others covered the main entrance concourse, two corridors with heavy pedestrian traffic, a static view of part of the field and a very specific view of the main entrance gate to the school. The latter was beamed to the main buildings with a line of sight transmitter rather than cables because of the distance involved.

The pictures are controlled and recorded on two TeleEye digital recorders which are linked together and connected to the school’s computer network. The system also has seven Quad units that allow four pictures to be displayed on the screen concurrently, which means that amazingly the current twenty-six cameras can be viewed at the same time.

During the next 3 years the system will continue to expand inside and outside buildings providing safety and peace of mind for staff, pupils and parents.