How Fastech Helped Brookfield Community School Modernise Campus Security with Verkada
Brookfield Community School is one of Hampshire’s largest secondary schools, supporting more than 1,800 students across a busy 10-building campus. With a site of that size, effective visibility is essential. It supports day-to-day security, safeguarding, student wellbeing and the smooth running of the school environment.
As Brookfield’s long-standing technology partner, Fastech was proud to support the school as it moved away from an ageing CCTV system and towards a more modern, cloud-based security platform.
The project has since been featured in a detailed case study by Verkada, highlighting how Brookfield Community School has reduced investigation time by 95%, improved campus-wide visibility and strengthened its approach to student safety.
You can read the full Verkada case study here: Brookfield Community School reduces investigation time by 95% with Verkada
You can also find out more about Brookfield Community School here: Brookfield Community School
The Challenge: An Ageing CCTV System That Was Slowing Teams Down
Before the upgrade, Brookfield was using a traditional on-premises CCTV system that had become increasingly difficult to manage.
For the school’s IT and pastoral teams, finding footage could be a slow and frustrating process. Loading the system alone could take 20 to 30 minutes, before staff even began manually searching through individual cameras to locate a specific incident.
For a large school site, that level of manual work can quickly become a burden. Investigations that should have been straightforward often took far longer than needed, particularly when staff had to piece together activity across different areas of the campus.
There were also practical challenges with maintenance. Cameras dropping offline, hardware issues and difficult-to-access equipment meant the system required regular attention from the IT team. In some cases, staff had to physically access cameras on taller buildings, which was neither efficient nor ideal.
At the same time, Brookfield was facing another challenge that many schools will recognise: student vaping. Without vape detection linked to video context, it was difficult for staff to identify where incidents were happening and respond with confidence.
Brookfield needed a system that could make investigations faster, reduce the burden on IT and give staff clearer visibility across the whole campus.
The Solution: A Smarter, Centralised Security Platform
After reviewing the school’s requirements, Brookfield selected Verkada as the platform to modernise its security infrastructure.
Fastech supported the transition from the planning stage through to installation. Rather than treating the project as a simple camera replacement, our team carried out a full site walk to understand the layout of the school, identify previous blind spots and recommend improved camera positioning.
This approach helped ensure the system was designed around how the school actually operates, not just where old cameras had previously been installed.
The installation was completed during the summer holidays over a three-week period, allowing the new system to be deployed without disrupting the academic year.
Today, Brookfield manages 150 Verkada cameras and air quality sensors through Verkada Command, giving authorised IT, pastoral and senior leadership teams a single platform for visibility, investigation and response.
Faster Investigations and Stronger Safeguarding
One of the biggest improvements for Brookfield has been the speed of investigations.
Using Verkada’s search tools, staff can now find relevant footage much faster than before. Instead of manually scrubbing through disconnected camera feeds, teams can use motion search, AI-powered search and camera shortcuts to narrow down what happened.
According to Verkada’s case study, Brookfield reduced one investigation from around two hours to just five minutes. That is a significant saving of time for staff, but it also means incidents can be reviewed and addressed much more quickly.
For schools, this matters. Whether staff are looking into a safeguarding concern, damage on site, student behaviour or an operational issue, faster access to evidence helps teams respond with greater confidence.
Vape Detection with Video Context
Brookfield has also deployed Verkada Air Quality Sensors to help address vaping on campus.
When a potential vape event is detected, staff can receive an alert and use nearby video context to support follow-up. This gives the pastoral team a clearer picture of when and where incidents may be happening, helping them move away from guesswork and towards a more evidence-based approach.
Verkada’s case study reports that Brookfield initially saw around 15–20 vape alerts per day. This has since reduced to just two or three per day, showing the impact that better detection and faster intervention can have within a school environment.
Privacy-Conscious Evidence Sharing
Another important part of the project was making evidence easier to share, without compromising student privacy.
With Verkada Command, authorised users can share secure links to footage rather than downloading files, uploading them elsewhere and managing access manually. Staff can also use privacy tools such as face blur to help anonymise bystanders when footage needs to be reviewed or shared.
For a school environment, this is particularly important. Footage may need to be shared with senior leaders, pastoral teams, governors or external stakeholders, but it must be handled carefully and appropriately.
By bringing privacy tools, video access and incident sharing into one platform, Brookfield has been able to create a more practical and controlled workflow.
Fastech’s Role in the Project
For Fastech, this project was about more than installing new cameras.
Our role was to help Brookfield rethink its campus coverage, improve visibility and make sure the system supported the school’s day-to-day needs.
From the initial site walk through to installation and ongoing support, we worked closely with Brookfield to ensure the system was planned properly and delivered with minimal disruption.
We have also continued to support the school after the initial rollout, helping the team stay up to date with new Verkada features and best practice. As with any modern security platform, the value does not stop once the hardware is installed. Ongoing guidance helps schools get more from the system over time.
A Modern Security Platform for a Busy School Campus
Brookfield Community School has moved from a slow, maintenance-heavy CCTV setup to a modern security platform that supports faster investigations, better visibility and more efficient safeguarding workflows.
For Fastech, it is a strong example of how the right technology, planned and installed properly, can make a measurable difference to a school environment.
The project also shows the importance of working with an experienced installation partner who understands the practical demands of education settings. Schools need reliable systems, but they also need thoughtful design, clear handover and ongoing support.
We are proud to have supported Brookfield Community School on this project and pleased to see the results recognised in Verkada’s case study.
Read Verkada’s full case study here: Brookfield Community School reduces investigation time by 95% with Verkada
Find out more about Brookfield Community School here: Brookfield Community School
To speak to Fastech about cloud CCTV, Verkada installation or security solutions for schools, please get in touch with our team.
