Equipment provider Genie CCTV has supplied CCTV systems to St Alban’s Academy. Near the centre of Birmingham, this specialist engineering and maths academy opened in September 2009, replacing St Alban’s CE Specialist Engineering College. It now forms part of the ARK Schools Network, which includes seven other academies.
St Alban’s is a mixed, non-selective Church of England academy, offering places to 11-16 year-olds. The Academy has upgraded its 10+-year-old black and white/colour surveillance system with new Genie CCTV equipment, specified by Midlands-based installer Unison Integrated Technology. St Alban’s IT Manager, Mohammed Asharif, who oversees the Academy’s security arrangements, says that two cameras from the original installation were retained while 37 others were replaced with Genie units.
These include 30 AVRCD-5351 540TVL day/night vandal resistant dome cameras for internal use, to monitor areas including corridors, the reception area, main foyer and access through the Academy’s main doors. Meanwhile, seven of Genie’s C5352 540TVL day/night bodied cameras, with 2.8-12mm auto-iris varifocal lens and external housings are in use around the Academy site buildings. Images from all the cameras are recorded onto three Genie GDVR-H608 eight channel and GDVR-H616 16 Channel DVR real time Quadraplex DVRs, which offer up to 3Tb of internal storage capacity.
The system has already proved its worth, preventing a reoccurrence of sporadic vandalism, as Mr Asharif says: “We did suffer repeated stone throwing from the street, which caused damage to glass panels on the side of a building stairway, but since we installed the new cameras there haven’t been any more problems. Day-to-day, we find the CCTV system useful for health & safety functions to care for and protect our pupils and staff, for instance by tracking visitor movements around the site and checking for potential intruders.”
“Unison [trade union for public sector workers] advised us that Genie equipment would best suit our requirements and was the most cost effective solution offering high standards of reliability and image recording quality, and that’s certainly proved to be the case. Meanwhile, Unison has been a very helpful company, exceeding our expectations in terms of the service and back-up we receive from them. After this positive experience, I’d certainly recommend both Unison and Genie CCTV to anyone else.”
