Keeping your students safe is obviously a major priority for all independent schools, but this becomes critical were an emergency situation to arise. Our recently launched new electronic escutcheon has been specifically designed for use in an education environment; it enables buildings and specific rooms, such as lecture halls or seminar rooms to be quickly locked down during a security or other emergency event.
In these types of situations, it could be safer for students and staff to remain where they are, securely locked in a safe environment until the emergency is over or the emergency services have arrived. Our new escutcheon enables authorised users (for example a teacher) to put the room’s door lock into a standalone lockdown mode, securing the room until help arrives.
These locks are compatible with any door type and have a built in card reader within the inner escutcheon, which allows designated users to lockdown the room quickly. Only users with lockdown privileges can use the functionality. These rights are assigned as part of the user’s access profile when they are initially configured by the organisations security team.
In the event of a security breach a bursar, headteacher or other person with the relevant rights, just needs to present their card/fob to the inside reader of the door lock. A green light signals lockdown has been activated.
If anyone tries to enter the room when lockdown is activated, the outside reader shows red and the door cannot be opened. For security reasons a card with master privileges will be able to override the lockdown – these master cards would typically be held by a head of security, estates manager or principal and would be able to access a locked down room at all times.
For a teacher to deactivate the lockdown mode they would present their card/fob to the inside reader for a second time, the reader would then revert to green to indicate that lockdown is no longer deployed.
For more information, call 0113 273 0300 or visit ait.co.uk.
