The Chalfonts Community College is a larger than average co-educational secondary school in Buckinghamshire which currently has around 1500 pupils.
The Challenge
Whilst utilising existing equipment where possible, providing The Chalfonts Community College with an improved and effective means of site-wide communication whilst enhancing the safeguarding of their pupils.
Due to the size of the site, it was essential that the solution be able to deliver high performance and effective communication across a large area, while allowing for school-wide communications for at least 41 members of staff who are permanently issued with a two-way radio.
The Solution
Following coverage checks, the decision was made to convert the existing VHF Analogue system (with repeater) to Digital communications, using Digital Radios in a back-to-back capacity that would provide site-wide coverage.
As the College had previously been purchasing Digital Radios from us, which had been programmed in Analogue, with a plan to ultimately migrate fully to digital, we reprogrammed those to the new Digital channels. The remaining Analogue radios (Vertex EVX-531’s, which had been discontinued), we replaced with Motorola EVX-261’s, which are ideal in a school environment due to their compact nature and they were also the logical replacement.
Migrating from an Analogue system to Digital back-to-back radios also meant a cost saving as there was no longer a requirement for ongoing Infrastructure maintenance or an annual OFCOM License for the repeater and antennae system. The savings made here effectively paid for a large portion of the upgrade, a win-win situation for the College.
The Result
The new digital radios offer intelligent, high-quality audio combined with noise-cancelling technology to ensure important conversations are heard across all areas of the College. Another feature is longer battery life which ensures that members of staff can stay in contact with each other for longer - vital in safeguarding the pupils, especially during emergency situations.
Steve Andrews, Site Manager said that he found Resound ‘excellent to deal with, from start to finish’.
We plan to check-in with Steve Andrews shortly after the new school year has started to see how they’re getting on with their new digital system.