The challenge
Cranleigh School is one of England's leading independent co-educational boarding schools, set within a 280-acre campus in the Surrey Hills. With 961 pupils — around 75% boarding on site across eight separate houses — the school faces a challenge confronting many boarding schools nationally: vaping. The discreet, odourless nature of modern e-cigarettes makes it exceptionally difficult to detect by traditional means, and boarding house bathrooms, changing rooms and quiet corridors had become problem areas. Pastoral leadership needed reliable, real-time intelligence without a member of staff in every location, and without compromising pupils' privacy and dignity.
What we did
SEG Core deployed Verkada's SV11 air quality and environmental sensors across the highest-risk areas of the campus — boarding house bathrooms, common areas, changing facilities and key corridors. The sensors detect vaping aerosol signatures in real time and alert designated pastoral and safeguarding staff through Verkada Command. Critically, the system integrates with the school's existing CCTV: when an alert fires, duty staff can pull up the adjacent camera view immediately rather than searching through footage. SEG Core also installed additional cameras in external areas where vaping had been reported.
The outcome
Cranleigh has seen a marked reduction in vaping incidents. The sensor network has acted as both a detection tool and a deterrent — pupils know the system is in place, and the culture around vaping has shifted noticeably. Integration with CCTV has strengthened the school's ability to manage safeguarding cases with a clear, timestamped evidence trail.