This month a Bolton headteacher issued a stark warning about the real dangers of vaping following schoolchildren falling ill after inhaling an unknown substance through a vape device.
You can read more about the incidents and how schools in Bolton are working with the authorities, including the police, to address the issue and raise awareness of the dangers of children vaping. You can also find the letter that Westhoughton High School’s headteacher Neil Coe sent to all parents after calling paramedics to the school for the third time to assist children who had severe reactions to vaping https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/24167934.westhoughton-high-school-heads-stark-warning-vaping/
At DMS, we understand that traditional monitoring of vaping in schools puts a huge drain on resources, taking teachers away from their primary roles to stand guard at break times outside toilets and other areas to ensure pupils are not breaking the rules.
Due to us having over forty year’s experience providing technology solutions for schools and colleges throughout the UK we were super excited when we began to work with Verkada last year and the groundbreaking products they offer. As Verkada’s education partner in the UK, we have seen the benefits first-hand of simplified and modern security technology following every install - whether in a primary school, secondary school, college or university. Every site has reported a decrease in incidents as these products allow preventative planning, not simply reaction to something that has already happened.
Security has always been a priority for schools and it is rare for products to come to market that allow such an instant change in operational procedures and such an increase in efficiencies. With pressure being on SLT’s to improve safety, monitoring and reporting across all areas of their premises, we wanted to highlight the beneftis of Verkada’s sensors and cameras for you.
You have the ability to manage multiple campuses behind a single pane of glass and help teams respond faster with an intuitive dashboard accessible from any web browser or mobile device.
Unlike anything else on the market, Verkada products are plug and play devices which means they are out of box configuration and ready to go with analytics. Forget lots of cabling and install horrors, they simply have a CAT5/CAT6 cable in the back of the camera.
Forget having a teacher standing outside every toilet in the building to control the vaping situation – these sensors not only detect vape emissions, they also monitor air quality, temperature, humidity, motion and noise. Safeguarding is a priority and these products allow instant alerts to be set up for incidents – for example raised noise levels could suggest a bullying incident is taking place. You are able to deal with this in real time.
You can also instantly monitor the live whereabouts of children who are likely to abscond, ensure offenders are not on your premises, make sure unauthorised adults are logged on the system so that pupils are not leaving school with them and set up flight-risk alerts on exit boundaries. Meaning you are able to prevent and reduce the occurance of incidents.
Gone are the days of your caretaker having to walk around the entire site to run regular audits! Once all of your devices are in the system you get an instant alert if anything on your platform goes down. Because everything is cloud-based, Verkada offer 24/7 support. It is straightforward to resolve any issues – you reach out via your platform, support provides a diagnosis and mostly can resolve the matter for you at that stage. If the fault is with the equipment a replacement will be shipped immediately. And you have the reassurance that everything has a 10-year warranty.
DMS are proud to have secured positions on multiple DfE-approved ‘deals for schools’ frameworks, which makes your procurement process very straightforward. Our team can explain more how the frameworks operate and how they benefit you but in a nutshell, they offer a compliant and secure route for your school’s procurement needs. Unlike traditional procurement methods, these frameworks eliminate the need for a separate, full tender process each time you need to purchase – significantly reducing both the time and costs usually associated with procuring ed-tech solutions.
We could talk all day about the benefits of investing in these products. Instead we’d like to offer you an opportunity to book a demo and see for yourself.
Contact leads@thedmsgroup.co.uk to arrange this and OR CALL 0333 015 1900 and our team will answer any questions you have.
