Established in 1975, Barming Primary School is at the heart of the community in Barming, Kent. The school strives to provide a safe and happy learning environment for its pupils, with modern facilities and a broad range of extracurricular activities. As a key part of the local community, the school works in partnership with parents to ensure pupils achieve their full potential. With the pupil population doubling in size to 400 since opening, as well as a total of 50 staff, security at the school has become increasingly important in recent years.
Established in 1975, Barming Primary School is at the heart of the community in Barming, Kent. The school strives to provide a safe and happy learning environment for its pupils, with modern facilities and a broad range of extracurricular activities. As a key part of the local community, the school works in partnership with parents to ensure pupils achieve their full potential. With the pupil population doubling in size to 400 since opening, as well as a total of 50 staff, security at the school has become increasingly important in recent years.
In March 2011, OFSTED published a report recommending that all schools should provide a safer environment for children as best practice. The report states that all schools should give high priority to getting their safeguarding procedures right, including securing the perimeter of the school to ensure that it isn't open for anyone to enter the premises.
Following its own OFSTED inspection in 2011, Barming School looked at investing in an access control system to ensure that they met these new safeguarding requirements. The school wanted an access control system to increase security and give them more control over the flow of pupils around the building. It was also paramount for parents to be confident that their children were going to a safe environment every day.
Paul Moon, Site Manager at Barming School, was responsible for implementing and overseeing the project. He says: “In our March 2011 OFSTED inspection, we discussed improving security at the school with the OFSTED inspectors. We needed an easy to use access control system that was within budget but still ticked all the boxes.”
The school enlisted the help of local installation company, SAES, to advise them on how to move forward with ramping up security at the school and install the new system.
Adam Gray, Manager of SAES, said: “Having previously received expensive quotes for standalone systems from other companies, Barming School were looking for a more cost-effective option that suited their needs. As regular installers of Paxton, we knew that we could provide them with a networked access control system for half the price quoted to them before.”