CCTV Notification

Dear Parents and Carers

My reason for writing to you is to explain and highlight my concern as to the safety of our students in and around School. As you will be aware we have installed a number of CCTV cameras around the School. These have been extremely successful in ensuring that all our students are safe whether it be from people entering our building from outside or, as sometimes occurs, antisocial behaviour of a small minority of our students.

One area of concern that still exists for me are areas of the School that are not covered by CCTV. As teachers we sadly cannot be everywhere at break times and lunch times. From discussion with a number of our students and also following up some incidents of vandalism, smoking and sadly some acts of unkindness, it has become evident that the student toilet areas can be an environment where some of our students feel vulnerable.

I want our students to be able to use these facilities without any sense of fear of intimidation, risk of breathing in cigarette smoke or having to make do with vandalised equipment.

As a large secondary School we are not alone in facing these challenges. I have therefore visited one School that has successfully tackled this problem with the use of CCTV. The parents at the School were at first a little apprehensive but now are full of praise for the initiative.

I would like to install a CCTV system in all student toilet areas which enables School staff to monitor who goes in and out of the toilets without impinging upon student privacy within cubicles and in the urinal areas. As outlined above such a system has been shown to be very effective in the Schools which have adopted it, making the facilities more pleasant and, above all, safe.

However, I recognise this is a sensitive issue, hence I would like to consult with you over the proposals.

Should you have a perspective on this proposal which you want me to consider I would ask you to write to me prior to Friday, 11 November 2005 . Depending upon the number of responses, I will try to respond to concerns raised individually.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Yours sincerely

B K Jordan

Headteacher