Education
Innovative locking systems for added security and accessibility in schools
Our contribution to safety
A school building is a hive of activity. The coming and going of teachers, pupils and parents, the jostling in the staircases and at the main doors at break times as well as other clubs and associations which use and rent the premises in the evenings after school place high demands on school security.
Besides offering reliable protection against unauthorised access or vandalism, the security technology used by a school also has to minimise the risks of injuries on doors and windows and secure emergency escape routes in the event of emergency and AMOK incidents. A task which can be efficiently managed with the help of modern and patented locking systems from specialist suppliers.
In the turbulent everyday life of a school, it is impossible for teaching staff, secretaries or caretakers to constantly monitor all the doors and windows. It takes just an instant for a child to run out of the building through an escape door. Or unnecessary accidents occur on doors and windows which are not secured or only inadequately. The complicated management of keys for sensitive areas of the building costs time and patience and also involves a personal liability risk for members of staff if a valuable key goes missing or is misused.
Convenient flexibility for everyday school life
Time-consuming activities where teaching staff first have to pick up a key for the stock cupboard from the secretary's office before they can collect new sheets or pens are now a thing of the past thanks to mechatronic or electronic locking systems such as eCLIQ or KESO Integra. The programmable locking technology allows you to individually save access permission rights for each door in a building on one single key. A software manager is used as a convenient management tool which takes an enormous load off staff. Thanks to modern locking systems, access rights can also be restricted by time which means external access can be easily authorised to clubs and associations that use the building after school hours. The available system solutions are also extremely flexible to extend and are quick and cost-effective to install or upgrade.
Loss of key without risk of liability
It is a well-known fact that keys can be easily lost when many different users and persons have access to a building. This especially applies in a school building where, up until now, the protection of sensitive areas such as the staff room or document archives was the sole responsibility of the key owner. Owning a key was always associated with the risk of losing it and, if so, meant the costly and laborious replacement of the entire locking system. In contrast, mechatronic and electronic locking systems allow keys to be easily barred from the system or deprogrammed when lost or stolen.
Secure locking systems accessible to everyone in schools
Children, especially young primary school children, are often unaware of dangers in their direct surroundings – they usually have other things going on in their heads during school time. This is one reason why a relatively high number of accidents still happen in schools. Accidents such as the squashing of fingers on unprotected or inadequately secured doors. In response, certified finger protection blinds and cover profiles, such as those in the Planet Finger Protection range, are ideal protective measures to protect small hands from getting trapped in the door's closing edge. Planet is also well-known for its drop-down door seals without thresholds which are flush with the door to ensure safe accessibility at all access points in the school.
Prepared for an emergency
To prevent pupils leaving through emergency doors unnoticed, time-delayed opening systems, which first trigger an alarm before they open, are the right choice for schools. These intelligent systems help to protect children from dangerous situations yet the escape routes remain accessible and secure at all times. In amok school shooting situations, persons trapped in the building must be given the chance to lock themselves into a protected area. Rooms can be secured using rampage-proof mortise locks from MSL, offering pupils and teachers a safe place to hide in an emergency. These special panic locks are fitted with thumbturn cylinders which allow persons inside the room to lock the door without a key - a safe and uncomplicated solution to a life-threatening situation.
Leading suppliers of door locking solutions such as ASSA ABLOY (Schweiz) AG have an extensive and complete product portfolio for schools and childcare facilities and can provide assistance in all security-related matters.