Keep your school safe from fire, emergencies and intruders
School security is absolutely paramount whether you are a parent or a teacher and having a maintained Fire Safety & Access Control System in the school is crucial for the safety of the children who attend on a daily basis. UK Legislation defines that it is the school’s responsibility to fulfil a duty of care and ensure the safety of everybody who attends or visits the school from potential fire or intruder.
Fire Safety
When considering the best type of fire alarm for a school, the most common requirements are:
- a system that can be effectively monitored and maintained;
- the need to provide early detection and warning of a real fire;
- a procedure that enables the safe evacuation of all school occupants in a controlled manner;
- a need to prevent false alarm activations.
Why Choose an Accredited Fire Installer
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Effective and well-maintained fire alarm systems and fully trained fire officers are essential elements of ensuring pupils, staff plus the buildings and equipment are protected against a fire. Only an accredited installer can ensure your system is designed and installed correctly for your premises. They will install and commission and maintain your system to a set of guidelines issued by an accredited Company like BAFE Organisation. A well-maintained fire alarm system will ensure compliance with fire safety regulations and also go towards helping you pass your OFSTED school report. |
Key Challenges
Children can be naturally curious, so education on fire safety is an important aspect of their learning journey. Fire drills regularly practiced and education on fire safety is an important part of Communicate UK’s involvement when securing a new Fire Alarm System installation. It is our responsibility to work with the nominated Responsible Person (typically the facilities manager; building manager for larger schools or it could be a member of the Board of Governors) to help prevent false activations and ensure the teachers and other members of staff know how to conduct a fire drill.
A fire alarm sounding is something the teachers and pupils only want to hear when it is planned and we help with all stakeholders within a school to ensure regular planned drills take place together with planned maintenance and training for new team members as and when required to ensure that the schools Fire Alarm System and processes are compliant, well maintained and support fire safety policies, procedures and the UK legislation.
Access Control
The security of the school is paramount and the right security system will provide you with a superior level of control allowing the flow of children, teachers and visitors through the school to be completely controlled.
Where there are multiple access points, such as front and back doors, entry gates and a network of buildings which is usual in larger schools, these can be networked to one or many points within the premises and access can be given or denied depending on the access permissions. Staff and visitors can be given different permissions to enter different parts of the building, with their own tags and access codes.
A successful access control installation always starts with a site survey. Location, times of access and the level of security required are key elements the qualified engineer will consider when designing the right solution for the school. Typically, our Managing Director, Andrew Miller, will be the surveyor to ensure accreditation standards are met within the system design.
Staffed entry-level access control systems are okay for smaller schools as long as a member of staff is always present. However, most of our systems installed into the senior schools we maintain are much more complex. PC based systems allow us to code defined areas and differing levels of access to various entry points. The system is easily extendable to include barriers and school gates and can be operated with a simple reprogrammable fob, swipe card or by a keypad entry system. With the right security systems in place, you can also connect your access control to your addressable fire alarm system to ensure doors are unlocked in the unfortunate event of a fire alarm activation.
Why choose us
Every school is different. As an accredited security company, we are regularly assessed to ensure we meet British standards and UK Legislation. All our access control systems are maintained by experienced accredited engineers who can devise a security system which will not only protect pupils, staff and visitors, it will also impact positively on your Ofsted rating.
Featured Case Study
Established in 1965, Great Baddow High School is an 11 – 18 Comprehensive Secondary School based just outside of Chelmsford.
The school was awarded specialist Sports College status in 2002 and then into Academy status in 2011 and retains its sports specialism, adopting science as a second specialism in 2014.
With student numbers growing year on year this OFSTED Good rated senior school now welcomes over 1400 students daily with students from over 40 primary schools in and around Chelmsford.
We have been working with Great Baddow High School since 2014 when we took over the monitoring and maintenance of their Fire Alarm System, Intruder Alarm System and Access Control for both the main school building and the 6th form building. We upgraded and extended the security systems which are now connected to enable the doors to unlock automatically in the event of a fire alarm activation.
We work closely with their Responsible Person to ensure their tailored Addressable Fire Alarm System continues to protect the whole school from fire. As these systems are monitored, our NSI Gold Alarm Receiving Centre will also call the emergency services in the event of a dual activation.
The most recent work involved extending the system to include their new 6th Form building. With optimal smoke detectors and an addressable panel this system provides crucial information in the event of a fire alarm activation. For example, it can identify which fire alarm detector has been activated and on what time and date this took place.
How Communicate UK can help!
Communicate UK have a team of friendly installation engineers available to meet demand across Essex so if you are concerned about the fire safety in your school then call 01245 400044 and book a site survey with Andrew.
You can also email your worries to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Why choose us?
25+ Years Fire Safety Design, Installation and Maintenance knowledge and experience
BAFE (the independent auditor of Fire Protection across the UK) Accredited Provider
Family-run business based in the heart of Essex
24 hour telephone service
All our Fire Alarms and Equipment are designed and manufactured in the UK
Over 2000 happy customers in South East of England
