The challenge of allowing access throughout the school, whilst maintaining security was becoming increasingly difficult on a day to day basis due to the large number of keys that were necessary

Moorland School

The School

Founded 1931, is a thriving co-educational day and boarding school located in the historic town of Clitheroe. Set in extensive grounds in the picturesque Ribble Valley the school ensures seamless education from 2 to 16 years and provides consistency of learning and pastoral care, offering day pupils and boarders the opportunity to settle in one place through to GCSE level.

As the school caters for a wide age group there is a real need to ensure efficient security for pupils, staff and equipment and this is heightened further by the numerous school buildings located on the impressive 15-acre site. As well as being a high-performance school it also has boarders’ onsite and this presents a unique challenge for security and safeguarding people and property.

Challenge

The challenge of allowing access throughout the school, whilst maintaining security was becoming increasingly difficult on a day to day basis due to the large number of keys that were necessary. As the school continues to grow, with a recently opened 6th form college, the problem was only going to escalate. The additional pressures of ensuring dormitories cannot be accessed by visitors or unauthorised staff and pupils heightened the challenge.

With security high on the agenda Moorland School’s Headteacher Jonathan Harrison looked to Progeny to provide an efficient, cost effective and manageable solution to it’s access control and security needs.

“students and house parents have all commented that they feel safe”Jonathan Harrison, Head Master at Moorland School

Survey

After a survey of the site and an audit of how access should be managed to ensure safety for pupils, staff and equipment, the Progeny on-line system was chosen.  Progeny on-line was selected for several reasons; including its system’s ability to grow according to the client’s needs. It is efficient and cost-effective –  and in conjunction with the hugely popular Crystal readers, allows access via a number of methods ideally suited to a school such as Moorland.

Progeny P4 Access Control System

P4 on-line also offers many superior technical features such as 3 methods of connectivity.  USB to a server computer; LAN/WAN making use of an existing data network; and GPRS for difficult to reach applications. The P4 access controller is designed with flexibility in mind. It can be programmed to function both stand- alone and from a PC and allows small systems to grow, from one door up to 128,000 doors. P4 online uses Doors Enterprise software and the latest release includes many additional features. New features include Photo ID card printing, time sheet and simplified user interface, Progeny Express links, custom database fields and new help wizards.

Over 60 doors are being managed by the system and access is achieved with a combination of key fobs, cards and ID badges. As well as the teaching staff and school management being able to freely move throughout the school using these methods, all students have an entry card, improving access throughout the school so more time is spent in the class room.

The system manages and monitors access in the nursery, preschool, junior and senior school and all other buildings and rooms throughout the school, including the state-of-the-art sports hall and complex.

Intelligent programming has been built into the management of the access, such as time zone locks and automatic door locking at certain times of the day.

The installation of the system was undertaken by Ellison Security and they worked very closely with the technical team at Progeny to ensure a smooth and efficient installation. The installation was carried out during term time with no disruption to the school day and according to pre-agreed time-scales.

Commenting on the success of the P4 on-line system installation, Ian Bend, Progeny’s Technical Director said ‘Moorland School were looking for an efficient and cost effective solution to manage access throughout the school, particularly when school security is high on the agenda for both teachers and parents alike. P4 on-line was the perfect solution because as well as being highly efficient and cost effective, it can grow with the school’s requirements.  Over time the system can cater for extra doors as they become necessary.’

The new access control system has been hugely successful in Improving school security and helps safeguard the schools most important assets, the pupils and teachers, as well as protecting property and building from unauthorised access.

Head Master

Jonathan Harrison, Head Teacher at Moorland School has been delighted with the installation, commenting on the system Jonathan said “students and house parents have all commented that they feel safe, and that their belongings and personal space is far more protected than before. The P4 system allows the senior leadership team to track students and staff across the school site, and we are planning to embed the system into our school attendance policy, as the software used by the system allows detailed reports to be produced, such as time in and time out” Jonathan went onto say that he feels secure in the knowledge that Moorland School’s most valuable assets are protected “safeguarding children is our greatest responsibility and therefore our greatest risk. I view the Progeny access control system as our first line of defence in safeguarding the protection of the children and adults within our community.”

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