Services · Access control
Access control for schools and colleges
We replace the bunch of keys with permissions that are granted and withdrawn without touching the door, limited by zone and by time, with a record of who opened it and when. We work with publicly funded private schools (concertados), private schools, universities, business schools and vocational training centres, whose buildings see teachers, cleaning staff, catering staff, after-school clubs and external organisations pass through every week. We work with TESA, and we install and manage the equipment.
Email us at info@penwin.org and we'll arrange a visit to look at the doors in your school. The initial assessment and proposal are free and come with no obligation.
The problem starts with a drawer full of keys
A school builds up keys over the years: every building job and every change of lock leaves copies in circulation that nobody has counted since. In the end there is a full drawer and no certainty about who has which.
The day a master key goes missing, the problem is not the key but the decision it forces: either you accept that a copy that opens half the building is out there somewhere, or you change the lock cylinders on all those doors.
- Old copies in circulation that do not appear in any record.
- Master keys that open far more than they need to.
- No audit trail of who went in, where and at what time.
- Every time someone leaves, there is doubt over whether they handed everything back.
Who passes through a school every week
This is where a school differs from an office. The building does not see a stable workforce from nine to six: it sees teachers and office staff, cleaning and maintenance, the catering company, after-school club staff, sports clubs at the weekend and organisations that use the assembly hall on the odd evening.
Each group needs to reach different places at different times, and many of them are external staff with high turnover. With keys, there is no way to organise that other than handing out more than is needed and trusting people.
- Teachers and office staff, during teaching and administrative hours.
- Cleaning and maintenance, outside the school's working day.
- Catering, after-school activities and sports clubs, in the afternoons and at weekends.
- External organisations that occasionally use the assembly hall, classrooms or sports courts.
The problems we solve
With access control, authorisation no longer lives in the metal. A permission is granted and withdrawn without touching the door or changing the lock cylinder: you define which zones each person can reach and in which time slot, and anyone who leaves the school loses access that same day.
A log of door openings is also kept: who opened which door and when. PenwinEdu works with TESA on access control, and installs and manages the equipment, with the same support as the rest of the school's infrastructure.
- Permissions by person, by zone and by time slot.
- Access for joiners and leavers granted or withdrawn immediately, without any work on the door.
- Lost credential: it is cancelled and a new one is issued, without changing locks.
- A door access log that can be consulted.
The doors that usually justify the project
Hardly any school starts with the whole building, and there is no need to. The project is justified by a few doors where the risk is obvious, and from there it is extended at whatever pace the budget allows.
They are almost always the same ones: the school office and the student records archive, the comms cabinet the whole network depends on, the device storeroom, the labs and the medical room.
- School office and records archive.
- Comms cabinet or comms room.
- Storeroom for laptops, tablets and projectors.
- Labs, workshops and medical room.
- Sports hall and assembly hall outside school hours.
Two things to be clear about from the start
The first concerns people's safety: emergency exit doors must always open from the inside, without a credential. Access control restricts who gets in, never who can get out.
The second concerns data protection. The door access log is a form of personal data processing, with its own purpose and retention period, and the people affected have to be informed beforehand. It is a decision for the school leadership, not a technical setting, and we cover it on our blog.
- Exit always possible from the inside at emergency exit doors.
- A defined purpose and retention period for the log.
- Prior information for staff and external companies.
- Who can consult the log, decided in writing.
Getting started
We start with a free, no-obligation initial assessment at the school: which doors there are, what each key opens today and who needs to get into each zone and at what times. That produces a proposal with a phased scope and a schedule.
The roll-out is planned around the school calendar: anything that affects doors in daily use is concentrated in periods with no teaching. This is where over a decade of working with schools and colleges counts most.
- Free, no-obligation initial assessment at the school.
- Proposal with a phased scope and priorities.
- Installation planned around the school calendar.
- Ongoing management with PenwinEdu's support.
Frequently asked questions
Do all the school's doors have to be changed?
No. The usual approach is to start with a small group of doors where the risk justifies it – the school office and records archive, the comms room, the device storeroom or the labs – and leave the rest as they are. The initial assessment is used to decide where to start.
Can it be done in phases?
Yes, and that is the most common approach in schools and colleges: a first group of doors is rolled out and the system is extended in the following school years. Planning the phases from the start stops the second phase from undoing decisions made in the first.
What happens if someone loses their card?
That credential is cancelled and a new one is issued, without touching any door. That is the practical difference compared with a physical key: losing a master key can mean changing the lock cylinders across half the building, whereas a credential stops working as soon as it is deactivated.
Does it work in a power cut?
It depends on the equipment installed on each door: some units are standalone and battery-powered, and others are hard-wired and depend on the mains supply and the school's backup systems. What happens in a power cut is defined door by door in the initial assessment.
Can doors be opened with a mobile phone?
Phone-based credentials exist in the access control market, but not all equipment supports them. If the school is interested, this is looked at in the initial assessment and the proposal states which doors could use them.
Can it be used for staff working time recording?
No: they are two different things. Access control decides who can enter a space; working time recording is an employment law obligation with its own requirements for retention and access. For time and attendance, PenwinEdu has a dedicated product, Klok.
Which access control brand do you work with?
PenwinEdu works with TESA on access control, and installs and manages the equipment at the school. Ongoing management is integrated with the rest of the service: the same support channel that handles the rest of the infrastructure.
Does it integrate with the locks we already have?
It has to be checked door by door, because it depends on what is installed and what condition it is in. The initial assessment reviews what is already there and indicates what is worth keeping and what should be replaced.
Let's talk about your school
Email us at info@penwin.org with details of your school, or fill in the contact form, and we'll reply with a specific proposal.