The Royal Manchester School for the Deaf first opened its doors in 1825. Now known as The Seashell Trust, it works with students with a complex range of communication and physical difficulties.
The Royal Manchester School for the Deaf first opened its doors in 1825. Now known as The Seashell Trust, it works with students with a complex range of communication and physical difficulties.
Partly funded by the local education authority, the Seashell Trust is also a registered charity. The Trust operates a school at Cheadle Hulme in Cheshire, which caters for these students. Much of its valuable work could not be achieved without the active fundraising undertaken by the charity.
Mike Pearn, the Trust's IT and Resources Manager, said, “I felt that access control would benefit both staff and students by creating a safer environment.”
Net2, from Paxton Access, now controls access on 31 doors around the site. Four hundred and fifty staff and some of the more able students have been issued access tokens.
The external doors on the college and the school are controlled using Paxton Access Long range readers which allow access tokens to be read from some distance away. Automatic door openers have been fitted. Wheelchair users and staff find this a great help when entering the building. They have the hands free fobs fixed to the wheelchairs and when they approach, the system reads the fob and unlocks the door.
“Some of our students can be disturbed by unexpected noises, Net2 allows us to restrict access to the corridors leading to certain classrooms,” Pearn said. “This allows the teaching staff to work with students without distraction. The system helps us to give the best environment in the different classroom areas.”
Overall, the benefits to the Trust have been huge; the combination of an installation company who look after them well and a great system with superb support is a winning formula.