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Clifton College, the UK’s leading independent boarding school for girls and boys aged 3 -18 years, has chosen SALTO Systems as the ‘one-stop-shop’ for their electronic access control needs.

As part of a rolling plan to upgrade its security and access control facilities Clifton College in Bristol has just completed Phase 1 of the programme, installing 30 Mifare controlled online locks from SALTO Systems into dormitory buildings and individual entranceways. Future plans will also include use of the Mifare card system for cashless vending as well as access control purposes.

Jim Caola, Managing Director, GEM Security Centre Ltd says: “Almost all of today’s schools including Clifton College have a need for some type of access control system, preferably from Salto Systems. Traditionally, however, one of the main problems with building management in the educational sector has been that access control has usually just been applied to perimeter doors or other sensitive points leaving the remaining doors secured by conventional mechanical locks. This leaves one major weakness in the system - key control.

As Clifton College has discovered, by incorporating the SALTO Systems Virtual Network (SVN) into their upgrade programme, they have removed this weakness and eliminated any potential problems with key control. SVN provides 90% of what users would get from a fully wired online system at the cost of a stand alone system, and it uses distributed intelligence in the locks and cards to allow them to manage their access control requirements in a secure and comfortable way.

It eliminates the need to replace locks when key security is breached due to the loss or theft of cards, allows cards and locks to be updated, restricted or deleted remotely and eliminates the need to walk around the site updating locks with a programmer.

Finally, the school really appreciates the 8 sets of automatic locking and unlocking timers built into Salto System's SVN controlled lock handles. These allow for automated free and restricted access to common areas through the day, while the timed toggle setting for the classrooms allows staff to unlock doors for lessons knowing that the door will automatically re-lock at the end of the day if it is left open.”

Ashton Park Comprehensive School in Bristol has put security top of the agenda with the installation of new electronic access control products from SALTO Systems.

100 locks have so far been fitted across every building throughout the school. The project is part of a rolling refurbishment project across the entire campus, fitting SALTO locks to key external and internal doors around the site allowing the school to control access and automatically secure doors at the end of the day thus improving security.

Jim Caola, Managing Director, GEM Security Centre Ltd says: “Like most schools around the country Ashton Park is a busy place, so needs to manage the access and movement of staff, pupils and visitors around its premises. To achieve this key control is vital. We replaced their old mechanical locks with SALTO electronic RW ProAccess locks controlled by i-buttons. Keys for these were then issued to staff, contractors and all post 16 pupils.

Keys have also been given to a small number of sports clubs who come in to use the school facilities at weekends.

Having embraced their new electronic access control system, security has been improved and key control revolutionised. The school can now programme keys to allow access to certain rooms or areas for specific periods only with the doors automatically locking at pre- specified times. This is proving particularly useful for the contractors working around the school and for the weekend sports clubs who only need to access a very restricted area and range of facilities. And if key security is breached due to the loss or theft of a key, it can now be instantly deleted from the system without the need or cost of changing any locks - saving the school time and money.”

Phil Butt, Bursar at Ashton Park comments: “We’re very pleased with the SALTO product as it gives us so much more control over our school security. As budgets allow we plan to upgrade it to a Mifare controlled system in the future, combining access control with the issue of school library cards and cashless vending etc all in one package.”