School Security Assessments & Reviews
Schools, colleges and universities in metropolitan environments such as London can be at risk from a variety of security threats ranging from arson, vandalism, drugs, anti-social behaviour to serious assault, sexual assault, knife and gun crime and even murder.
We understand that new trends and behaviour young people engage in can quickly spread in particular when it comes to nuisance, illegal and violent activity.
Knife crime is constantly a threat to our young people, and in some areas seen as normal behaviour to carry a knife or weapon around.
The upsurge in school crime and violence has caused many educational facilities across London to re-evaluate their current security measures and strategies to deal with this unwanted escalation.
Over the past 3 months, we have carried out 7 security risk assessments on secondary schools and 2 at independent fee paying schools.
The senior managers and principles felt that there respective schools needed to take action in order to deter and prevent incidents taking place and have ready protocols and strategies in place to effectively deal with an incident if one were to occur. For a little investment and time, they were able to identify where their security was lacking and put in place measures to strenghten their security position.
School Security Strategies & Plans
Along with addressing the physical security measures schools should adopt and improve, an inter-agency policy should also be implemented with engagement from local authorities, the Police and local community leaders and people of influence.
Our security consultants carry out risk assessments on educational facilities to provide effective security protocols and treatment plans for these environments, however in urban environments in a densely populated area, issues such as those highlighted, need to be considered and dealt with proactively and robustly.
When carrying out our risk assessment and security analysis, it is a challenge to create a balance between a secure and safe environment whilst providing a pleasant place to study without creating a prison style effect.
School Security - A Collective Solution
We work with principals, managers, key stakeholders, and decision makers to risk assess a schools security posture and develop a security treatment plan to remove or mitigate the security risks and vulnerabilities we discover.
As security professionals, we follow a problem-solving approach involving; scanning available data, researching relevant facts and information, including researching previous incidents, analysing local crime trends, carrying out a full physical survey of the buildings and their surroundings and analysing all the identified intelligence to produce sustainable solutions that are achievable, realistic and cost effective.
Using our experience and knowledge of the security industry we are best placed to recommend crime prevention principles which have been developed to reduce negative and unacceptable occurrences and incidents of crime, in order to create a safe environment for staff and students.
We are able to create not only policies for the physical security elements of reducing incidents, but also strategies that involve early intervention, staff training, education and creating community safety partnerships.
Find out more about our school security consultancy service HERE