Safe School Technologies (SST), based in Kent, claims to be offering the first smart security systems designed specifically to protect pupils and safeguard schoolteachers.
Just last month, Security Management Today reported on research revealing an urgent need for better security in British schools, and in 2006, the Home Office warned that many schools remain at risk from intruders.
The company’s managing director, Hamish Chalmers, agreed. He said attacks, intruders and vandalism are all too common in schools.
“Our new approach to security will provide practical defences that will particularly help protect staff, pupils and visitors during school hours from potential threats from local youths, disgruntled ex-pupils and parents, as well as from potentially damaging false allegations from within the school walls.”
SST believes schools’ security needs are not being met by ‘generic’ security companies that service everything from supermarkets to building sites.
The company’s SentryVision CCTV system can be deployed in classrooms to monitor so-called hotspot areas before recording and archiving any incidents. Another of SST’s main products, ImpartialView, not only sees but hears, too. Designers claim it will give headteachers a record of both sides of a story if an allegation is made against a teacher.
“The key is to remove all grey areas,” said Chalmers. “It is our firm belief that if pupils and teachers in a school feel safe and secure, it is much easier for the school as a whole to flourish.”
TeacherVista, SST’s continuing professional development product, aims to give teachers the ability to record themselves teaching, helping to build up a ‘teaching bank’ that can be accessed by trainee teachers and pupils unable to attend lessons.
SST, which licenses its intellectual property rights from Vigeotech IPRC Ltd, promises to pass on a proportion of its profits to education projects around the world through its Educ8! Programme – a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.
Chalmers said, “We will donate 4% of our profits in 2007, and increase our contribution year on year until we pass on 8% in 2011. Schools can choose a beneficiary from a list of eight projects which give children around the world the opportunity to learn.”
