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Invacuation protocols
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The protocols of an invacuation
Richard Manby of Bodet highlights the essentials needed to increase the safety of staff and students should an emergency lockdown event occur in a school
Schools and colleges acting ‘in loco parentis’ when children are in their care is underlined by the new statutory guidance documents published by the Department for Education (DfE) in September 2019. These set out the legal duties schools and colleges must follow when carrying out their responsibilities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
While these guidelines addressed the social, criminal and online risks children face, there is little mention of ensuring the physical safety of children should an emergency arise on school or college premises that requires lockdown. In 2018, in association with GUK, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) published a document that provides guidelines for school lockdown. Following this, the DfE launched a consultation in November 2018 to seek views from head teachers, teachers, other school staff and governing boards aimed at putting together a comprehensive national plan for school lockdown procedures, but to date nothing has been published.
So in what circumstances could a school instigate a lockdown procedure?
Data recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service for a 12-month period up to May 2019 includes 291 instances of suspects armed with a knife on school grounds, 21 instances of gun possession, 37 reported rapes, 232 drug offences and 3,500 reports of violence. However, incidents that risk the safety of children in schools extends well outside the M25.
Polesworth school in Warwickshire went into lockdown when intruders were reported on site, and a Sheffield school went into lockdown after a boy was chased into the school by a group of other youths. Pupils were forced to ‘hide under tables’ when Stuart Bathurst Catholic High School Form in Birmingham was locked down twice after reports of three intruders on site. West Kent College in Tonbridge went in to
Data recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service for a 12- month period up to May 2019 includes 291 instances of suspects armed with a knife on school grounds
Many schools have solved the issue of communication by installing an integrated public address, class change and emergency alarm system
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lockdown amid reports a man was brandishing a wood axe in the car park, as did a school in Angus after an excluded pupil returned to the campus for the second time wielding a knife.
It’s not just incidents on school premises which can instigate a lockdown either; nearby events can also present a threat to pupil and staff safety. Tabor Academy in Braintree was reportedly put into lockdown as a number of armed police officers responded to an incident in a nearby estate. A Plumstead school went into lockdown after a pupil was stabbed at a nearby bus stop. Police advised a Manchester school to go into lockdown when they launched a manhunt in the area following a serious assault, and a school in West Derbyshire locked down after a man was found shot dead in a nearby field.
And it’s not only instances of intruders or violence that can trigger a lockdown. Gordon’s School in Woking went into lockdown as a precautionary measure following police advice as emergency services dealt with unknown chemical spill nearby.
The concerning factor is that these are just some of the reported incidents which occurred during a four month period between September and December 2019. This suggests it is incumbent on all schools to have lockdown procedures in place should a situation arise that puts the safety of students and staff at risk.
All schools have alarms and procedures in place in the event of a fire. However, an intruder entering the premises, or a major disturbance occurring in the nearby community which potentially puts the school at risk, is a totally different situation requiring specific protocols. Some LEAs have formal lockdown procedures in place and some schools actually carry out lockdown drills, but this is not universal. During 2019, Prestatyn High School rehearsed a lockdown procedure after all schools were advised by the Welsh Government to put in place arrangements for a lockdown to protect pupils and staff in the event of incidents such as the threat of terrorist action, an intruder on the school site or civil disturbance in the local community. Students of Forest School near Wokingham had to hide under tables while doors were barricaded as they practised a school lockdown drill, and Bicton College students enacted a realistic lockdown scenario where armed police officers performed an operation to search for and detain a potential intruder on the premises.
Whether an emergency requires evacuation or lockdown, it is essential that clear information is communicated quickly throughout the school. By law, schools must have a working fire bell or alarm fitted. However, while a bell can provide an audible indication that an emergency situation has arisen, it doesn’t differentiate between evacuation or lockdown, let alone a partial or full lockdown situation. Using an existing fire alarm to indicate a lockdown can cause confusion amongst students and staff, and actually goes against current government guidance from NaCTSO (National Counter Terrorism Security Office). The last thing any school wants is pupils streaming out onto a playground to assembly points when there is a possible violent intruder on the premises. Numerous schools also use the same fire bells to announce class changes, but this can cause further confusion and potentially cost precious time before staff and pupils realise a real emergency requiring immediate action is occurring rather than just a class change.
Many schools have solved the issue of concise communication by installing an integrated public address, class change and emergency alarm system which store a range of different tones, melodies and pre-recorded voice messages. Not only can these be used to announce routine class changes, lunch or end of school, but should an emergency situation occur, alarms for evacuation or lockdown can be broadcast immediately across the whole site. These emergency alerts can also be triggered from wired control boxes, remote controls or even smartphones so staff and pupils know exactly what’s happening and what to do.
As well as clear announcements, regular practices should be conducted so that all staff and pupils are familiar with the actions they should take should an emergency occur. This not only avoids confusion, but the time saved could mean the difference between successful outcome or tragedy.
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An upgrade for Ipswich Town FC
Before the 2019 season Ipswich Town Football Club was faced with an ultimatum: upgrade its CCTV system or risk not being able to play at its Portman Road home. We take a look at what happened...
Portman Road is a 30,000-capacity venue, but without an upgrade to the stadium’s CCTV system, the club was informed it wouldn’t be able to commence the new season.
ClearView had maintained the club’s existing CCTV system for the past decade. During that period, it was agreed that the existing CCTV surveillance system had become outdated and was in need of an overhaul. The ability to increase recording capacity, as well as allowing for recording of higher quality and higher resolutions images, was a key consideration. ClearView provided Ipswich Town with upgrade options, but a lack of available funds meant these had to be put on hold until there was a budget for the technology investment.
The pre-season ultimatum naturally meant that a newly updated CCTV system was a priority, but ClearView had to deal with some major challenges presented by the stadium itself.
“Portman Road has four large stands, with the existing CCTV system utilising analogue coaxial cables that ran over the roofs of those stands,” said Paul Main, Strategy Director at ClearView. “The system we wanted to deliver Ipswich Town was based around the 8MP IP PTZ cameras from Hikvision. This was because the club needed the ability to deliver evidencequality images for crowd monitoring and safety purposes. With that in mind, we had to devise a solution to ensure those IP images could be transmitted over long-distance coax cable.”
The solution was to utilise eight Hikvision 8MP Network Speed Domes positioned around the stands to monitor crowd activities and safety at all times. Crucially, they were able to send images over a conventional analogue coaxial cable.
“The club needed the ability to deliver evidence-quality images for crowd monitoring and safety purposes. With that in mind, we had to devise a solution to ensure the IP images could be transmitted over long-distance coax cable”
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The issue of transmitting images over the existing coaxial cable was also complicated by the extreme lengths of cable over the roofs of the stadium. Working at such heights is always tricky and investing in all new cabling was not a cost-effective option. ClearView opted instead to use HighWire Longstar products from Veracity. They offered the necessary high-speed Ethernet and power delivery over the long lengths of coaxial cable.
An additional seven Hikvision 2MP Turbo PTZ cameras were installed around the outer perimeter of the stadium, also monitoring crowd and safety conditions. Whilst not the 8MP resolution of the internal stadium PTZs, the quality of these images over the shorter distance being covered far exceeded the original analogue images and allowed the club to keep their costs within the budget.
An additional thirty-three 8MP Turbo Dome cameras were deployed throughout the Portman Road facilities, including outside the stadium covering surrounding buildings, and in various locations under the stands. These were for crowd monitoring in public areas such as bars, corridors and function rooms.
All the images are stored on 48TB of Seagate Skyhawk hard drives using three Hikvision Turbo HD recorders, all running Hikvision’s HikCentral
“The system has certainly gone a long way to ensuring fans attending matches at Portman Road can do so in a safe and secure environment”
video management software. These, together with three separate PC workstations, each allocated sixteen specified cameras, allow users to monitor the whole stadium during match days. Three 48-inch high-resolution wallmounted monitors, each displaying 16 cameras, allow for continued overall viewing should an incident occur while one of the workstations is being used to focus on that situation.
ClearView Project Manager Lance Malkin said: “The system proved to be of value almost immediately. On one match day, a young man decided to set off a flare in the North Stand. Because of the high quality of the images the system captures, they were able to identify him from a camera positioned in the South Stand.”
Mick Warden, Match Day Safety Officer at Ipswich Town Football Club said: “The system has certainly gone a long way to ensuring fans attending matches at Portman Road can do so in a safe and secure environment.
“Our previous system was over 15 years old and was in urgent need of updating. Apart from being a key and reliable safety system, as one of the features, I was keen as Safety Officer, to be able to ‘drill’ down after an incident or event such as a missile thrown onto the pitch, for example, to be able to identify the offender. Suffice to say the Hikvision system, installed by ClearView, has met my expectations and we have had two occasions this season where offenders have been identified. We would have stood no chance with the previous system.”
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Luton Airport Courtyard by Marriott gets cybersecure video protection
The new Courtyard by Marriott hotel at London’s Luton Airport is being protected with the latest, cybersecure video surveillance technology from IDIS. The complete end-to-end solution, from Korea’s largest video equipment manufacturer, is enabling trouble-free remote 24/7 monitoring, ensuring improved service efficiency, safety and security for guests.
IDIS DirectIP® technology was chosen for its ease of installation and use together with the reassurance of multi-layered protection against cybersecurity risks.
Although the installation team from DGS Systems had never previously worked with IDIS technology before, they found that it lived up to its true plug-and-play promise.
Despite having almost 100 cameras to set up – including 74 full-HD IR domes and 17 vandal resistant full-HD IR domes –one-click network configuration allowed the engineers to work rapidly, connecting devices easily and not needing to manually enter passwords for each one. This not only reduced installation time but ensured greater protection against network infiltration by minimising the likelihood of human error, which can occur when passwords need to be written down and entered manually. Encryption technologies and NVR firewalls together with proprietary protocols and file structures make IDIS surveillance solutions less vulnerable to attacks than many common open architecture components.
IDIS DirectIP® made it easy to set up the three IDIS NVRs (32-channel DR-6332PS-S) to provide impressive recording capability and meet the customer’s requirement for three months’ storage of all footage. The NVRs’ 370Mbps throughput ensures no latency on live footage and high-quality image capture in full HD. Find out more: www.idisglobal.com
Selecting a Shock Sensor
Shock sensors represent a valuable tool in intrusion detection systems. Most alarmbased solutions can be split into two parts: protection of the interior of sites and protection of the perimeter. While many consider the perimeter as the very border of a protected space, such as a fence or gate, the perimeter of buildings is a vital consideration in dealing with detection.
Detecting intrusion in the interior of a building has traditionally been the preferred route for the security industry, predominantly because of standards and regulations. The interior of a building is usually a controlled environment: a sterile zone when the alarm system is set. No motion is expected, and doors and windows should not open. Traditionally the interior of a space is protected by PIRs, dual tech space detectors, some beam-based units and contacts.
It should be remembered that while contacts are commonly used to detect unauthorised opening of external doors and windows, in order to trigger an alarm, the intruder must open the door or window. While this does deliver an early alarm, often before they’ve gained entry to the premises, it can often result in damage being caused, which equates to a cost for the end user.
To meet the demand for compliant and accurate shock sensors, Texecom is introducing the new Impaq S Series devices. Designed to take perimeter protection to the next level, the detectors incorporate VIBER accelerometer technology to offer standards-compliant intruder detection without compromise.
The shock sensors are designed to detect and analyse a forcible shock and provide early warning of attempted intrusions before a break-in occurs, ensuring the safety of people and property. Catch performance is high, and the adjustable sensitivity makes the device ideal for a range of applications. Find out more: www.texe.com/uk/products/range/perimeter-detectors/
Integriti improves security and access control for college in Stockport
As an existing Inner Range customer and user of its legacy systems (Concept and Insight), Stockport College was keen to upgrade to Integriti and benefit from improved access control, security and building automation capabilities. Integriti from Inner Range is an intelligent third-generation security platform, setting new industry standards for integrated access control, security, and building automation. With Integriti, the college can leverage the system’s compatibility with cluster serving architecture, auto-discovery of door controllers and devices, as well as integrated Ethernet, to provide remote management and uploads via a smartphone. Another key feature is that it has been designed around system-centric programming. The process of user setup has been simplified to a ‘Who? What? Why?’ approach, a language used to describe permissions, rather than system-speak. This simple change revolutionises permissions setups. Visit: www.innerrange.co.uk
Supporting local politics at Basingstoke Borough Council
Basingstoke and Deane is a local government district and borough in Hampshire. With Basingstoke as its largest town, the area is known for family-friendly living and is home to over 175,000 people.
Since the installation, the new DICENTIS system has supported a seamless and transparent democratic process at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council.
Behind the scenes, via the third-party MVI Engineering application, the system automatically upgrades to the latest software versions. These centralized updates save time and operating costs. With the potential to increase the system’s functionality and size in the upcoming years, the council has a future-proof and expandable conference solution from Bosch, which already supplies around 50 percent of councils in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The system includes 63 DICENTIS Discussion devices with touchscreens (to support the required voting and identification capabilities for council members), nine DICENTIS discussion-only devices for guest speakers, and automatic camera control software. All the discussion devices are mounted on raised brackets to maximize desk space and are equipped with high directive microphones to deliver crystal-clear audio.Visit: www.boschsecurity.com/gb/en/
Honeywell’s OmniAssure Touch provides cutting-edge protection
Honeywell’s OmniAssure Touch access control solution provides advanced security against credential cloning and reader tampering, increases operator productivity when deploying mobile credentials, and is interoperable with a range of credential technologies and panel communication protocols. OmniAssure Touch provides:
Ultra secure protection : protect against credential cloning and replay attacks with technology that is fully compliant with OSDP Secure Channel Protocol (SCP) and the latest DESFire EV2 encryption standards.
Exceptional adaptability: features hassle-free, user friendly mobile credential capabilities that eliminate the need to present a phone to the reader and easy migration from legacy prox to smart and mobile technologies.
A comprehensive solution : save time by deploying mobile credentials directly through Honeywell’s WIN-PAK, WINMAG and Pro-Watch integrated security suites, revoke mobile credentials in real-time, and transform the way people interact with your building using the Honeywell Vector Occupant App. For more visit: www.security.honeywell.com/uk
The only security event you need to be part of
IFSEC Internationalreturns to ExCeL London on 8-10 September 2020
IFSEC International, Europe’s leading integrated security event, is critical to today’s changing landscape. Running for the fi rst time alongside Counter Terror Expo and Intelligent Buildings Europe, IFSEC is your unmatched opportunity to showcase your security technologies to a global network of installers, integrators, end-users, consultants, distributors and government offi cials.
“IFSEC has been transforming over the years. It is a must attend show for any stakeholder in physical and
converged security.” CTI/CISO Virtually Informed
“It was our fi rst time exhibiting in the UK and Europe, as we wanted to expand our markets. There was a good quality of visitors and foot traffi c – we would defi nitely exhibit again.”
Business Development Manager, Telaeris Inc
“We came to broaden our security portfolio, we wanted to explore the markets and understand ROI. It has been a really successful show with excellent networking opportunities.” Business Manager Siklu
