The Sentinel e-registration system – Overview

Sentinel is a flexible, easy to use electronic registration and access control system for schools, colleges, and universities.

Pupils and teachers use either a swipe or proximity card or fingerprint recognition technology to register either every morning and afternoon or, if you prefer, lesson by lesson.

The technology used ensures total data integrity, and every registration is recorded in real time, providing instant data on absences and the location of students.

Alongside all DfES reports, Sentinel can efficiently produce many other attendance summaries including attendance by teacher, attendance by subject, after school clubs and out of class.

Sentinel in operation

Students register under staff supervision. The period commences when the teacher or lecturer registers. Any student arriving subsequently is recorded as late. At the end of the period only the teacher logs out, which automatically logs out all students. This procedure is repeated for each teaching period. Students are encouraged to record temporary absence from class by logging out and back in upon their return.

The system can also be used for access control and interfaces with the establishment’s fire alarm system to automatically produce print outs detailing all staff and student locations when the fire alarm is activated.

Flexible

The Sentinel System can be supplied for the whole school or college, or part of. Your establishment can start with a single year or tutor group system and expand to cover the rest of the premises at a later date, dependent on your requirements.

The largest currently running network consists of 187 card readers spread over a 30 acre site. There are 13 teaching blocks that serve over 2,000 pupils and nearly 200 staff. Over the last 10 years each of the 6 daily registration periods have taken less than 2 minutes to complete.

The Sentinel administrator has password capability to fully manage the system on the school network. The system is fully customisable to meet any individual school’s needs. With the Sentinel database accessible on the school network, every user can access the data with full to minimal capability dependant on password control.

Easy to use

The training needed to use Sentinel effectively is minimal, because the system is so user friendly the only requirement for training is a one day course. Following this our software engineers are on hand to help with any queries or problems, and provide comprehensive advice.

Our online support pages provide guidance on commonly asked questions, lists walkthroughs, and holds help files.

Installation, Support and Maintenance

To avoid unnecessary disruption, installation of the system is usually carried out during the school holidays. However, where necessary, the system can be installed on a modular basis out of school hours, with no risk to the school’s extensive health and safety requirement.

For the first year maintenance is free of charge, following that a yearly support contract can be created or maintenance can be paid on a visit by visit basis.

Modem access to the administrators PC is required to support the data and software package. In the unlikely event of a hardware failure an engineer will be dispatched within 24 hours of the fault being logged.

See our FAQs section for more details of our support and maintenance services