Measures pay off for primary school

Earlier this year Dinnington Community Primary on School Road installed 15 CCTV cameras to cover its grounds after months of trouble with trespassers and vandals.

They were causing all sorts of problems at the school - ripping holes in the fence, destroying polytunnels, pulling up plants, damaging the roof and destroying the electric gates system

Headteacher Vanessa Vaughan said they have seen a ‘massive improvement’ in the number of incidents since the installation and now very rarely have any trouble.

The school is also celebrating after receiving a national award for its school security.

Mrs Vaughan and premises manager Lindsay Forster attended the glitzy Education Business Awards in London earlier this month where the school scooped the School Security Award.

“We were so surprised to win because it was such a big champagne reception, with Moira Stewart handing out the awards,” said Mrs Vaughan.

The award was given to the school for its outstanding effort to increase security through a combination of increased awareness in its staff and pupils and the procurement and installation of additional measures.

The were nominated for the award after organisers saw the article about the school and its cameras in the Dinnington Guardian.

Since the CCTV was installed, the school and local police have been able to identify those responsible for the damage.

Many of those responsible were teenagers and their parents have been alerted.

Mrs Vaughan said: “There has been a massive improvement. We very rarely have any at all now.”

“I would encourage other schools to do it. The big thing was being able to see what was going on at night.”

“We’ve also had the support of parents. Security was a big issue at the school. A pleasing factor was that in our Ofsted report in September, parents in their questionnaire felt that security was a strength at the school.”