CCTV in secondary school corridors, is this commonplace?

[Urbanvoltaire]

I was at a secondary school open day today & noticed a fair few cameras on the corridors. Is this normal? Call me naive but I'm a bit surprised at the need for a school to have to rely on CCTV to monitor what's going on....

FYI I was at a smallish south London school, my first open day tour.

normal.

There for safeguarding- students and staff. Ours isn't used for constant monitoring but it's there to refer back to if an incident requires it (fairly rural East Anglian secondary), very rarely IME.

If you think that's bad wait until you're introduced to the on site policeman!

Blimey Scoundrel that's scary!

I don't actually know how common they are to be fair. They had one at my kids last school (that I withdrew them from) and believe me, he was kept very busy! I've not had reason to find out whether there is one at the school they're at now.

Yes, it's quite routine.

The only time I've ever been affected was when I was involved in breaking up a fight. I led one of the main instigators/winders up away & she told anyone who'd listen that I'd grabbed her round the neck, slammed her against the wall & screamed abuse in her face.

HT was inclined to find this unlikely scenario quite funny, until I requested a meeting with him & asked him to review the footage - of me guiding her away with a hand lightly on her arm, her pulling her arm away & running off, & me calmly returning to support colleagues with the fight situation.

Without the CCTV, she might well have been believed - as it was, she was asked if she'd like to make a formal complaint - she declined, knowing it was all on tape.

Raven, I saw a similar situation on last weeks educating essex programme, the HT proved the pupil was in the wrong using CCTV footage.

But it's fairly uncommon for it to be needed for anything like that tbh - a more typical use would be a teacher discovering scratches on their car, & the carpark CCTV revealing two year 9s playfully barging a third so he rolls over the bonnet, various zips & chains attached to his jacket or bag scuffing the paintwork.

Cue three sets of parents receiving bills...

...anyway, it's seldom there because something ghastly is likely to happen on the corridors or in the grounds - more for easily identifying the miscreants after some tiresome but low-level antisocial behaviour!

It was through CCTC that the school was able to make it clear to the taxi company why dd's disabled transport driver was not up to the job- after he had gone into the school gates 3 or 4 times and then shot straight into the headteacher's car. He refused to accept that he had caused any damage and insisted that he was going to carry on doing the job; after his boss had been in to view the footage he was quietly replaced, much to dd's relief (there had been several near misses involving children, but of course it was difficult for her to prove).

Another time it was used (less seriously) was when a teacher wanted to give dd's whole class detention and it was then pointed out that it wasn't actually their fault he slipped in the corridor; he had ignored a slippery surface warning cone which had been put out because they had informed staff about a slippery problem.