Founded in 1989, Mount Pellon School, in Halifax, West Yorkshire, has grown from a small nursery school to Calderdale’s largest primary school, serving 575 pupils from Nursery through to Year 6. The school population is remarkably diverse, with the pupils speaking no fewer than 18 languages between them including Arabic, English, Punjabi, Russian and Vietnamese. The enthusiastic staff members supporting the children are filled with depth and diversity of specialist expertise. a forward-thinking environment looking to provide a warm and professional welcome to school visitors.
Mount Pellon’s relationship with SG World began in 2004 when the company began to supply them with cheques. With the rapid growth of the school, the administration was in need of a way to deal with the increasing number of visitors through their hallways. This is where SG World was able to offer a solution: VisIT ED, an electronic visitor management system.
Sales Executive Jacqui Lomas visited the school in 2010 to tell them more about visitor management alternatives. She said:
“The school had grown quite quickly, and they were using a basic sign-in book in reception, which was beginning to be overwhelmed as they could have over 40 visitors through the office in a single day. In addition, their ability to clearly identify one-time or repeat visitors was not necessarily up to the standard Mount Pellon would have liked”.
With the volume of visitors Mount Pellon School experiences daily, a paper-based solution wasn’t right due to both cost and the amount of waste. The SG World solution was VisIT ED: a software based system which gives the school the tools it needs to manage their visitors quickly and cost-effectively. Teachers and members of staff at Mount Pellon also use the scanner to register themselves on site with their photo ID badges that are customised with Mount Pellon’s logo and branding by SG World’s ID department.
“All of our staff members are issued with picture ID cards, and are able to scan themselves in and out when they enter or leave the school, allowing us to keep a record of who’s at the school. It’s not only useful for the fire register, but to save us time if a phone call comes in for a staff member and we have to find out if they’re on-site or not”, School Administrator Mrs Denise Croft said.
“It’s very good for keeping track of our large number of midday supervisors as well”, Mrs Bickerdike added. “They can collect their badges and scan themselves in and out. We use the reporting function on VisIT ED to get the record of comings and goings and have used it before to check on lateness or frequent absences, to see if there is a habitual issue or in the case of staff members who are on an hourly rate”.
With the SG World VisIT ED solution, Mount Pellon is now complying fully with Ofsted safeguarding requirements by ensuring that members of staff and visitors are always clearly identified. The fully customisable visitor badges also contain the health and safety and site regulations for the school, fulfilling Mount Pellon’s duty of care to their visitors.
“We didn’t have badges or a consistent visitor pass system previously. Now, the parents can know who’s who on-site, and everyone is able to see the difference between our full-time staff and other visitors. It’s very good”. Mrs Bickerdike said.
The VisIT ED package comprises a handheld scanner mounted on reception which connects up to a desktop PC, a printer for issuing passes, and the blank visitor passes which are filled in with each visitor’s details on or before arrival. SG World provides support for VisIT ED as part of the package including telephone or shared-screen support to quickly resolve technical issues, and ID creation services for new starters.
