St. Joseph’s Catholic Primary School is a vibrant and engaging mid-size primary school with 189 pupils in Halifax, West Yorkshire. The school is highly regarded both academically and socially and places an emphasis on the teachings of the Catholic religion. At the heart of the school is a caring and creative learning environment where all students are made to feel safe. St. Joseph’s recently installed a lockdown system to be used in the case of an emergency or threat to children and staff.
For this particular site a mixture of internal and external call points and sounder / beacons were used with the Master call point situated in the main school office. Three external sounder / beacons were placed around the playground and entrance with a further seven units sited inside the school. Using a proven, secure mesh protocol, when one ALERTEX unit is activated, it will trigger all units in range to sound an audible alert accompanied by a flashing beacon light.
ALERTEX lockdown units are blue to differentiate them from traditional fire alarms, and, in line with recent Ofsted guidelines which state that a lockdown alarm must be distinctive in sound from a fire alarm, there are 32 sounds to choose from. There is also a voice variant available which will sound a lockdown message which can be customised by the school.
The caretaker at St. Joseph’s was able to advise the engineers of the best positions for the ALERTEX alert points and installation was completed within a few hours.
