St Edwards COE School, Romford
CCTV and touch-free access for Unity Schools Partnership
Since 2018 STC have supplied and installed IP CCTV systems for multiple schools that are part of the Unity Schools Partnership.
The first of these installations was at Samuel Ward Academy in Haverhill, where the Partnership is based. A year later we moved onto the Castle Manor Academy, and later that year we also quoted for the installation at St Edwards.
In 2020 STC were excited to be awarded a two-phase project for the installation of CCTV at St Edwards COE School in Romford, to be completed over the Easter and Summer school holidays.
The first phase of the installation was scheduled for the Easter holidays but when the schools were closed early due to the pandemic STC were asked if we would like to go ahead and bring the installation date forward. This was ideal as it allowed a small 2-man team of STC engineers to ‘isolate’ within St Edwards School, as the only other members of staff were the site supervisor and one of the cleaning staff. This allowed us to get on with the job very quickly and efficiently.
We completed phase 1 of the installation within the prescribed 2 weeks but earlier than planned. It was then suggested that rather than wait for August to carry out phase 2, we might be able to continue with it straight away so we were pleased to spend an additional 2 weeks completing phase 2 and therefore the whole of the installation.
The school now has 58 fantastically detailed IP cameras linked to two 32-input recorders and is delighted with the results. Furthermore, when undertaking the installation we were asked whether we could improve upon the existing fingerprint recognition system that the school had on each of the main gates.
With the emphasis on hand-washing and pandemic safety, fingerprints were really not the way to progress and STC installed a touch-free fob system using the ACT system they had previously installed on a number of the doors around the school.
The final piece of the jigsaw is that to improve safeguarding one of the automatic doors needed to be locked down more efficiently and working with Tormax the door manufacturer STC are providing a solution to this problem.
