| For all its 'grant maintained' status, Kingsmead School in Cheltenham has been battling with just the same sort of problems which plague so many other institutions today. Indeed, it has been officially categorised as a school in 'challenging circumstances'.
Back in the mid-nineties, Kingsmead purchased an analogue CCTV system costing around £8,500. It consisted of two external dome colour cameras for recording and monitoring, plus one internal camera for monitoring but with no recording facility. Suitable though it might have been for some sites, the system did not really meet their needs for remote or occasional viewing and suffered from insufficient coverage, delays in locating and verifying incidents on VHS tapes, and poor image quality.
 Deputy Head Teacher Jim Davis, (right), was then tasked with finding a better answer. He looked at several digital CCTV systems, but came up against cost and management issues plus the attendant poor picture quality.
The optimum solution was finally discovered in RedHand 's new approach to digital surveillance, together with the recently introduced Pixord P200s network/video server cameras (NVS) from Gardiner Security. Instead of video, RedHand uses digital network cameras to take still pictures of incidents, at a rate of two per second. It saves these pictures as standard jpeg images onto a networked PC. Bandwidth needs are small and the performance of the network is not compromised.
The system now running at Kingsmead uses a total of 13 cameras to cover a school of 740 pupils - three externally at the gate, playground & bike sheds and the 10 Pixord P200s internally for areas such as the foyer and the corridors. RedHand sits on a dedicated PC which has both the Viewer and Housekeeper software installed. Another copy of the Viewer has been installed on the Deputy Head's laptop for quick and remote access.
Within the first few weeks of being fully operational, the system has been used it to capture pictures of a number of incidents, including a serious assault which took place in the bike shed and to identify a pupil who deliberately set off the fire alarm. The unique picture management facilities have made the system very effective and easy to use.
"Although RedHand has only been operating for a short time, it has greatly improved both security and safety. Because pupils are now aware that they can be watched, it has reduced truanting and had the important effect of moving critical incidents out of the school," says Jim Davis. | 
