Schoolchildren to be tagged in safety trial

A school in Wales is considering electronically tagging its pupils to prevent them leaving the school grounds during break times in an attempt to improve safety.

Dyfrig Ellis, head teacher of the Lonlas primary school near Swansea, got the idea for the scheme after seeing a demonstration of the technology at an IT conference and is now trying to set up a meeting with the supplier and the Local Education Authority (LEA).

If it gets the go-ahead, the school plans to run a trial to evaluate the tagging technology. This would involve children wearing a wristband connected to a central control system, which would alert staff if any child wandered off the school premises.

School governor Robat Powell told silicon.com the use of the technology would help improve the safety of the school's 350 pupils and 60 nursery children.

"One of the reasons we are interested is because of the difficulty in employing enough lunchtime supervisors. We are a large school with an adjoining playing field and there are many entrances and exits," he said.

An LEA spokeswoman said no discussions have yet taken place but it will meet with the school if it plans to go ahead with the scheme.

Plus: Read silicon.com's leader article on the trend toward using technology for surveillance in schools.