In a UK survey of 500 teachers, 24% reported their school had experienced trespassing in the past year. Fewer could say with confidence how quickly they’d know it happened.
Safety in school is not one big decision; it’s dozens of smaller ones: who gets through the door, how fast you can account for everyone in an emergency, whether a window lock actually works. Get enough of them right, and safety becomes part of how your school runs, not something bolted on after an incident.
That’s why we’ve put together this handy guide on the best ways to ensure safety in your school, so you can feel certain that your staff, students and premises are as secure as they could possibly be.
Contact us today to find out how VisiPoint can help keep your school secure.
9 Ways to Improve School Safety and Security
In a hurry! Jump to:
Deterrence as a security measure
Threat assessment and early intervention
Emergency communication and reunification
Building a supportive school climate
1. Planning for safety
It is the planning for emergencies which is one of the most important ways to ensure safety in school. If the school management does not have a plan for a given situation, then you cannot expect junior members of staff or schoolchildren to do the right thing when a potential threat is identified. This is just the same in buildings like hospitals, museums and doctors’ surgeries as it is in places of education.
A visitor sign-in system can be extremely helpful in the event of an evacuation. VisiPoint can generate an emergency list of everyone currently signed in, allowing you to act much faster and know exactly who needs to be located. Multiple admins and fire wardens can access the same live list, which updates when anyone is marked as safe. This helps your team know exactly who is still not accounted for. Having a visitor management system in place will help your school to be prepared for any emergency and evacuation scenarios.
Get in touch today to learn more about how VisiPoint could help your school.
2. Access control technology
One of the best ways to ensure safety in school from people is to control who is allowed entry. For example, your school may have guest speakers, workmen or work-experience teaching assistants who require temporary access to your facilities. The best way to manage these visitors is to invest in a proper modern visitor sign-in system. VisiPoint allows you to provide badges to your visitors which allow them access to your school. You’ll be able to set which areas they can access; for example, a contractor making repairs in the reception can be restricted from accessing the classroom areas of your school.
These badges will display the visitor’s name and can show a photo ID. This helps to prove who they are and identifies to other members of staff that they are allowed to be inside of your school. It also helps to identify anyone who shouldn’t have access to areas of your school and allows you to act quickly to remove them.
If you’re looking for a way to start providing ID badges to your visitors, contact us today and we’ll help you implement this in your facilities.
3. Deterrence as a security measure
Not every school can put up a physical barrier around its entire perimeter, and even where they can, it won’t help much during drop-off or pickup, when gates are open, and people are moving through in numbers. The bigger risk is often the main entry point itself, since that’s usually where an unauthorised visitor is most likely to slip through unnoticed.
This is where connecting a visitor sign-in system to your door access earns its keep. It’s worth taking seriously: in the same survey of 500 UK teachers referenced earlier, 24% said their school had experienced trespassing in the past year. Controlling who can open a door at your entry points goes a long way toward closing that gap.
In practice, this means the door only opens for someone who’s actually signed in and authorised; a staff member taps their RFID card at the kiosk, the system checks their access, and the door responds accordingly. It’s a straightforward way to keep casual or opportunistic access out without adding friction for people who are meant to be there.
If restricting access to your school is something you’re looking into, our team can talk you through how VisiPoint handles it.
4. Fire safety
Frequent checks of your school’s fire alarm system are a must to prevent a potential disaster. On top of this, a fire drill each term will help pupils know what to do in the event of a real fire and where they need to muster safely. These are a must as between April 2015 and April 2020, 1,467 primary schools and 834 secondary schools were affected by fires. This shows that fires aren’t a rare occurrence and can certainly hit schools. Consult your local fire service if you feel your school’s fire safety systems need to be updated. As well as alarms, consider investing in smoke and carbon monoxide monitors, which can save lives in schools as well as homes.
Our sign-in solution is designed to help you act faster when evacuating. You can access an emergency list from any device with a modern browser or by downloading the VisiPoint Passport app for even faster access. You can use them to practise fire drills or in the event of a required evacuation. In either situation, you’ll have a full list of everyone signed in at your school so your fire wardens will immediately be able to begin locating and marking your staff and students as safe.
Why are emergency evacuation lists essential to fire safety preparations? Find out in our blog post.
5. Locks and windows
A good many British schools, 38% of the Department of Education’s estate, are beyond their estimated design life. This means that windows are not always the most robust when it comes to preventing unwarranted access. In some cases, you cannot even check if the lock on a window works because it has been painted over many times.
In addition, door locks are often only adequate for preventing access from an opportunist. Ask yourself whether the locks on your school’s windows and doors are up to the job of preventing a determined intruder from getting in and fit new, multi-point locking mechanisms if you have doubts. This measure is among the most crucial ways to ensure safety in school from threats from outside.
6. Play and sporting equipment
Although children will inevitably injure themselves from time to time on the playing field, you can help to ensure they remain safe by offering them all of the protective equipment they should have access to. For example, school climbing frames and so on should only be installed on a rubber matting surface which helps to lessen an impact if a child falls. Equally, sports equipment should provide personal protection from impacts, especially where head injuries are a possibility. Cricket and hockey helmets are essential items nowadays and not an optional extra.
Want to learn more about why visitor management is essential for your school? Head to our Education Sector!
7. Threat assessment and early intervention
Reactive discipline only addresses problems after they’ve happened. A growing number of schools are moving toward multidisciplinary threat assessment teams, typically involving a senior leader, a safeguarding lead, and pastoral or SENCO staff, who work together to identify, assess, and support students of concern before a situation escalates.
This shifts the focus from punishment to prevention. Rather than waiting for an incident, these teams look for early warning signs and connect at-risk students with appropriate mental health resources and pastoral support. It’s a longer-term investment than a lock or a camera, but it addresses the root causes that other physical safety measures can’t reach. Find out in our blog post
8. Emergency communication and reunification
When something does happen, how fast and how clearly you communicate matters as much as the response itself. Best practice now calls for redundant, tested notification methods, meaning you shouldn’t rely on a single channel. A combination of public address announcements, text messages, email, and app notifications ensures the message reaches staff and parents even if one method fails.
A reunification plan should go further than a general policy. Decide in advance where parents will collect children from in an emergency, away from the main entrance if possible, and make sure this location is communicated to families before it’s ever needed, not during the incident itself.
This is also where a digital sign-in system earns its place. VisiPoint gives you a live, accurate list of everyone signed in, accessible from any device with a browser or the VisiPoint Passport app, so your team knows exactly who is on site the moment an emergency notification needs to go out.
Want to see how live evacuation lists support your emergency communication plan? Get in touch today.
9. Building a supportive school climate
Physical security measures work best alongside a culture where people actually speak up. Schools that invest in trustworthy reporting channels, such as anonymous tip lines, simple reporting apps or forms, and clearly identified trusted adults, tend to catch problems earlier than schools relying on formal channels alone.
Reporting channels only work if staff know what to do with what comes through them. Regular training on recognising warning signs and escalating concerns properly turns a reporting system from a box-ticking exercise into something that actually catches problems early. Counselling provision and peer support also matter here, giving students somewhere to go once a concern has been raised, not just a way to raise it.
Want to learn more about why visitor management is essential for your school? Head to our education Sector!
If you’re looking for a visitor management system that will improve safeguarding and security standards in your school, VisiPoint is the ideal solution. Get in touch with a member of our expert team on +44 (0) 191 341 0016 or click the button below”