‘Smart campus’ set up for emergencies

FOLLOWING a recent Government consultation on school security, a foundation of schools in Loughborough has introduced an innovative ‘smart campus’ to improve communication between staff and keep students safe in case of emergency.

Faced with the responsibility of over 2,000 pupils across four schools, Loughborough Schools Foundation, which comprises Loughborough Grammar School, Loughborough High School, Loughborough Amherst School, and Fairfield Prep School, has installed a system which connects more than 600 handsets in classrooms and offices to enable staff to communicate in case of an evacuation or rapid lockdown emergency.

Evoke Telecom, a Loughboroughbased telecoms company, recently won the 2019 CNA Comms National

Award for its Avaya Smart Campus

Solution.

Richard Smeeton, director of IT at Loughborough Schools Foundation said that, despite no previous critical incidents on the campus, he felt it was important to introduce a comprehensive security system.

He said: “School safety is moving up the agenda in the UK following the Government’s consultation on the issue and we’re delighted to be working with Evoke to set new standards in the sector.

“We felt that it was important to introduce a system that can enable instant communication between staff in case of any emergencies.

“Evoke’s previous experience working with schools in the UK and Avaya’s established ‘safe school’ footprint in the US and Europe really sold the solution to us.

“The immediate change and improvement was the simplicity of communications across the foundation’s campus. We previously had two different phone systems and a mix of handsets which were increasingly hard to manage.”

Susie Wardell, director of Evoke, added that she was delighted to be working with the foundation.

She said: “We’re honoured to be providing Loughborough Schools Foundation with a smart campus solution as part of their review of security across their estate of four schools.

“The Avaya Smart School solution is leading school safety on a global scale and in this case is putting the school’s communications strategy far ahead of those traditionally found in the education sphere.

“The Avaya solutions have been used extensively in the US and Europe and we’re delighted to introduce them to Loughborough Schools Foundation in support of their safe school and digital transformation goals.”