What are you doing to keep your school secure? What can be done better? Let's dive in.
Why is security important in schools?
The straightforward answer to this is simple: when students' safety needs are met, the learning environment becomes comfortable and conducive. While students are in school, it is the school's responsibility to ensure that they are safe and accounted for, especially with younger students.
Since the 2000s, the scope of school security has evolved to include digital security. Students are using iPads to learn and schools are using digital systems to manage admin tasks and store sensitive information. In addition to this, the recent school closures have also made the shift to technology a necessity.
How can schools improve their security?
Accounting for the students
Taking daily attendance at the beginning and end of the school day will help you account for every single student who is supposed to be in school that day. This way, you can note which students are not present and contact their parents to check up on them.
Daily attendance can especially be crucial when you are in charge of very young age groups. If one of your students goes missing, the record of what time they were checked into school and who dropped them off can be valuable to the search.
Using a digital attendance-taking tool, like LittleLives Check In, comes with additional benefits:
- Attendance records are easy to search up, if you ever need them.
- Sophisticated attendance tech adds another layer of security, through a photo attachment of the student at drop off/pick up with their guardian.
- You can send automatic updates to parents that their child is safely in school, giving them reassurance and strengthening your home-school communication.
- You get an overview look at your school's attendance rates and consider how you can improve it.
Besides security reasons, healthy attendance rates also correlates with better school performance. So, observing students' attendance rates can also tip you off to which students may need closer attention.
Students' wellbeing in daily school life
Incidents are part and parcel of school life. Students play around, get curious, take risks, and sometimes, these activities end injuries, disputes, or just minor disturbances. While these are normal and to be expected, it is important to note them down.
Particularly with more serious incidents (like injuries or disputes between students) where you will have to answer to parents or medical professionals, recording the incident can come in handy. Details like what happened, when it happened, who was involved, which staff members were present, and how the incident was dealt with may come up.
Even if you don't have to inform people outside the school, recording these down for the reference of other educators can let them know to be more sensitive to students involved. This can include making special classroom arrangements for an injured student, or keeping a closer eye on certain students.
Secure, school-focused technology
The last tip we leave you with is this: incorporate secure technology into every aspect of your school day.
Safe habits like taking attendance and keeping records can only go so far. With the digital age, comes digital crime. So, the technology that you use to handle sensitive information like student data, personal information, banking details, and more needs to be securely built. The best thing you can do is to rely on software that is designed to handle school administration. School-focused technology is built with the safety of students in mind.
School management software, like LittleLives, are built to protect student data, adhere to international data protection policies (PDPA and GDPR), and prevent data breaches. As a bonus, school-focused technology is also often very user-friendly as it is built to facilitate your needs as school administrator or educator.
Do your school security measures check all the boxes? What can be improved? Take the start of a new year as an opportunity to reexamine your school. Stay safe!
This article was first published on LittleLives.
Written By MENAKA ARASU
