Paxton delivers multi-site access control for The St Lawrence Academy

Advanced IT Services was approached by The St Lawrence Academy with the above requirements. The business is an end-to-end IT solutions provider boasting upwards of 20 years’ experience in the education sector and has been installing Paxton’s solutions for over a decade. The company supports schools and councils nationwide, providing access control, video management and IT support systems.

At the beginning of this year, The St Lawrence Academy was establishing its own Multi-Academy Trust. In terms of access control for the institution, the main requirements were to be able to access the system remotely, administrate multiple sites with varying groups of users and realise the potential for integration with other products and systems to maximise functionality.

Ashley Woodward, project manager at Advanced IT Services, stated: “Paxton is our ‘go-to’ manufacturer for any of our clients’ access control requirements. We usually introduce Net2 for our education clients. However, as this client is beginning the journey towards becoming a Multi-Academy Trust, we suggested that the roll-out of Paxton10 would yield positive results.”

Future-proof system

Paxton10 is a future-proof system that combines access control and video management. Its online user interface allows administrators to access the system from any device with an Internet connection, in turn making it easy to manage and monitor the security of a site.

Paxton asserts that Paxton10 “takes access control management to the next level” with it being scalable up to 100 sites on a single system featuring up to 1,000 doors, 1,000 cameras and 50,000 users. The system’s features certainly fulfil The St Lawrence Academy’s security needs.

Woodward continued: “Paxton10 presents an exciting opportunity for both the client and ourselves. The modern and user-friendly web interface allows administrators to manage sites with ease. The system is simple to use, which means system users can be trained very easily. Indeed, the system has been overwhelmingly well-received by the client’s network manager.”

Multi-site feature

Another benefit that Paxton10 has brought to The St Lawrence Academy is the multi-site feature, which will allow the management team to expand the system as more schools join the Trust.

Woodward explained: “The Paxton server is located within our own internal Data Centre, which means adding additional sites to the system can be done with both ease and speed and without the need for VPN access.”

Advanced IT Services began with a four-door trial employing Paxton10 before installing the system across 30 doors with 166 managed users. The system successfully isolates the Trust’s offices on site from the main school buildings and manages pupil access, in turn creating a secure environment.

In addition, if any pupil is late to class or absent, system administrators will receive notifications and the pastoral teams can act quickly, making sure there’s no emergency and that pupils are safe.

There are plans to expand Paxton10 when more schools join the Trust. The St Lawrence Academy also plans to integrate Paxton10 with other systems on site, further upgrading the functionality of the access control solution.

Woodward concluded: “Over the next few months, we will be installing a Bodet tannoy system across the site, which will be fully integrated with the Paxton10 system. This will allow a button press to announce a lockdown and lock all doors associated simultaneously.”

*Further information is available online at www.paxton-access.com