Walsall Academy Upgrades to a Powerful Hybrid Surveillance System

Built in 2003, Walsall Academy in Bloxwich, West Midlands is a state-of-the-art educational facility that offers 1,150 secondary students the opportunity to specialize in science, technology and performing arts along with a wide range of academic and work-related courses. The Academy recently upgraded to the Avigilon HD Surveillance System to better protect its high value areas and safeguard staff and students.

Walsall Academy instills a positive culture focused on providing a calm and purposeful yet challenging learning environment where high standards and traditional values of good behavior, honesty, and mutual respect are the hallmarks. The Office for Standards in Education, Children‘s Services and Skills (OFSTED) was established in 2007 to ensure the highest standards in care and education for children, young people, and students of all ages across the United Kingdom. In recent years, student safety has become a top priority for OFSTED inspectors, who carry out hundreds of reports and regulatory visits each week.

Walsall Academy's overall effectiveness has been graded outstanding, not only for excellence in academic achievement, but also because of its students' exemplary behavior, due in large part to the Academy's ability to manage student behavior firmly but fairly. "Having a reliable, high quality surveillance system to monitor hot spots across the campus has played a significant role in our ability to not only protect our high value areas - such as our technology and music suites - but also to ensure our students' safety, well-being, and good conduct," explained Adrian Bowater, Director of Finance at The Walsall Academy. "We are proud to have achieved such high standards in student behavior."

Surveillance Grows as Needs Evolve
A 189,000 square feet two-storey facility, Walsall Academy installed a basic analog-based surveillance system when it was first built but found that the image quality and management features could not always meet their needs. "As we identify new areas that require coverage, our needs have naturally evolved and will no doubt continue to do so over time," explained Bowater. Limited by a fairly tight budget, the Academy was not in a position to replace its existing analog system entirely, but wanted to improve its system performance and investigative success.

To achieve his performance goals, Bowater chose to upgrade the Academy's software for better results and turned to the experts at Technical Services (Shropshire) Ltd., a local provider of surveillance system design, installation, and service, who recommended Avigilon. "To make better use of our existing cameras, we chose to upgrade to a video management software (NVMS) platform to enhance system management and dramatically improve image quality, leading to more effective investigations and greater conflict resolution."

Administrators now seamlessly manage the Academy's hybrid surveillance system using Avigilon Control Center Enterprise NVMS with HD Stream Management and installed Avigilon HD cameras to monitor main entrances and parking lots for reliable license plate recognition, and to cover corridors, cloak rooms, and technology suites for greater image detail and facial recognition. Walsall Academy also installed analog video encoders from the same manufacturer to boost the performance of its existing analog-based cameras which are located throughout the interior of the school.

The manufacturer‘s network video recorder (NVR) was added to store up to 18 days of continuous surveillance video - a big improvement over its previous system, which could only store seven days of footage. "We now have fuller coverage of the facility so we can track who is on site to ensure the utmost security at any time of the day or night," said Bowater. The surveillance system operates 24x7 and is monitored live by administrators during the day and remotely by key staff if necessary.

Early Success Improves Behavior
"The surveillance system is critical to our ability to track students' behavior and reduce horseplay and petty theft," explained Bowater. With the Academy's previous system, particularly in high traffic areas, Bowater would not always be able to identify a student involved in a misdeed. "Now, when we add new cameras, we find that the problems move to other areas that aren't currently being monitored - a mark of the system's success in helping to reduce student misbehavior in key areas." As budget permits, the Academy will expand the system to cover all hot spots.

According to Bowater, "Avigilon Control Center Enterprise offers great flexibility to dramatically improve our ability to research difficult situations, significantly boosting our overall investigative success." Without a full-time security staff, school administrators manage the surveillance system, so ease-of-use was another top priority. "This software is not only highly effective, it is also very user friendly," said Bowater. "The school's previous analog-based surveillance system was simply not as intuitive, requiring a certain level of expertise to manage it."

With support and training from local partner BFI Optilas Ltd., school administrators were quickly up and running on the Avigilon HD Surveillance System - and achieving remarkable results. "Previously, we only had two technical staff members who could work the old analog-based system but with this one we were quickly able to expand the team to share the load," he added.

Closing Cases
With advanced features to improve performance and manageability, Avigilon Control Center not only saves the Academy time, it also dramatically improves investigative success. "Using the product's advanced search capabilities, we can find specific footage in a third of the time, significantly expediting investigations," added Bowater. The school can also quickly and easily export video and photos to give to local police officers who have occasionally relied on the Academy's surveillance system in their own investigations.

Like most educational institutions around the world, Walsall Academy must find innovative solutions to advance the educational experience while working within fairly tight budgets. With this in mind, the Academy chose this solution because it leverages the school's fixed assets while significantly improving overall system performance. "Because our analog cameras are not that old we did not feel the need to replace them entirely, but at the same time we didn't want to run two separate systems," said Bowater. By installing analog video encoders, Walsall Academy can actually achieve better results with its analog cameras without the expense of having to remove them and install cabling for all new cameras. "We were able to expand our coverage and improve image quality for the same cost of adding more analog cameras by deploying the Avigilon system."

Ripple Effect
The original challenge was to protect high value areas across campus and safeguard students to ensure their safety and good behavior. A key tool in the Academy's plan to maintain excellent student behavior, the surveillance system has helped Walsall Academy create a safe and enjoyable environment for students and staff. "With this system now in place, our students know that we can achieve better quality footage if incidents do occur, which has caused a ripple effect across the student body to improve overall conduct," concluded Bowater. "You can almost feel the difference."