Openness and hospitality are of paramount importance to many schools.
At the same time, however, educational institutions cannot and should not close their eyes to criminal threats.
In any event, they will have to take security measures that are appropriate to the risks and the specific nature of the educational establishment.
Aventus, a school for secondary vocational education, has taken well-considered security measures. Aventus offers more than 200 vocational training courses that are given at six locations in the city triangle of Apeldoorn, Deventer and Zutphen.
Seven years ago, a new school was built in Apeldoorn for almost 7,000 students.
The modern building was the largest building in Apeldoorn for some time.
In the meantime, the school has had to relinquish this leading position to a large sports and events complex.

Open school

“Aventus wants to be an open school,” says Wout van Bruchem, senior infrastructure manager at the school.
You can see that as soon as you enter the school.
You will then be directly in the middle of Hi-Street, the heart of the school that is accessible to everyone.
You imagine yourself in a nice shopping street with a hairdresser’s shop, lunchroom and garage.
Further to the outside and higher in the building are the classrooms and practical rooms.
The Executive Board and support services of Aventus can be found on the highest floors of the building.
Wout van Bruchem: “When securing our schools, we always look for a good balance. On the one hand, we want and need to be well secured, and on the other hand, we want to be that open and hospitable school. In the heart of the school, barely noticeable security measures have been put in place. You can walk around more or less freely. The higher and closer you get to the outside of the building, the more security measures we have taken. There are also two professional security guards in the school who are supported by about 20 student security guards. If there are incidents, we prefer to resolve them indoors. In principle, perpetrators are not pilloried here. And if the police come, we will do everything we can to receive officers out of sight of the students. Arrests will also never take place in the school itself. We attach great importance to our students feeling comfortable and safe at school.”

Risks

“Within a school like Aventus, theft and vandalism are the most important security risks,” says Van Bruchem.
Nowadays, more and more students – including secondary schools and higher vocational schools – are bringing their own laptop or tablet to school.
In addition to the usual teaching and school materials, vocational schools also have tools, machines and all kinds of other subject-related materials.
“Unfortunately, at Aventus, we also have to deal with (minor) incidents from time to time that usually take place during the school’s opening hours.”

Access Control

More and more schools are opting for a modern access control system to control access to the school, certain rooms or floors and the car park.
Aventus opted for Nedap’s AEOS system in all its locations.
Wout van Bruchem: “With AEOS, we can centrally determine who has access to the school or certain rooms within it, in what way, at what times and under what conditions. It’s a nice system that, from a technical point of view, is rock solid. For the more than 2000 lockers, we use the LoXS electronic locking system (also from Nedap). At Aventus, there is a LoXS terminal with a card reader in the centre of every locker block. At the beginning of each school year, students who wish to do so can rent a locker. At that point, the corresponding access rights will be linked to their card. Since the Gronos management software is no longer supported, the management of the LoXS vault locks is done from AEOS. The cards used by our students and staff are both their (student) card and the ‘key’ with which they can open certain doors and their lockers. For the latter, students now only have to present their card to the central card reader on the locker block and their locker opens. Recently, our cards have also been used for printing and/or copying.”
Wout van Bruchem is very satisfied with the modern access control system.
“Fortunately, we no longer work with keys at all and therefore no longer have to deal with keys that get lost and therefore have to replace locks.”

Camera surveillance

To prevent vandalism, Aventus has installed cameras in all kinds of places in and around the school.
In Apeldoorn alone, there are more than 60 cameras: on the façade, at the elevator entrances, in the Hi-Street, the canteen and in the parking lot.
The images enter the security lodge.
Van Bruchem: “In Apeldoorn, the images are only viewed after an incident. They are then used to investigate the exact circumstances of the incident and identify any perpetrators. Of course, these cameras also have a preventive effect. Fortunately, if you know that recordings are being made, most of them don’t mind taking something away or destroying other people’s property.”

Replacement of the cards

This spring, all printers at Aventus had to be replaced.
Since Aventus wanted to use the student and staff cards for printing/copying as well, the new printers had to be equipped with card readers.
Until now, the school used cards and card readers that worked with Nedap’s NeXS technology.
“Because this card-reading technology is not supported by the printers, we switched to student cards that worked with the Mifare technology,” says Wout van Bruchem.
“In the long run, this will also allow us to save costs, as cards and card readers are cheaper.”
The 111 new printers have now been installed and equipped with Mifare card readers.
Teachers and support staff at Aventus were already using a so-called duo pass, with NeXS and Mifare technology.
So they didn’t have to get new passes.
The switch to Mifare meant that all card readers used by the students had to be replaced.
Also the ones on the lockers.
A total of 78 card readers were replaced and 31 LoXS terminals were equipped with Mifare card readers.
Mactwin Security Solutions was awarded this assignment and also took care of the integration of the LoXS system into AEOS.
Hollander Techniek took care of all the assembly work on behalf of Mactwin.
Wout van Bruchem: “Both parties have done an excellent job.
I was very impressed by the IT knowledge of the employees of Mactwin.
They took care of the integration, programming and commissioning of the new card readers and the controllers, largely remotely (from the Mactwin Operation Center).”