Aldersley High School

For Stephen Blower, Headteacher at Aldersley High School in Wolverhampton, that reality came into sharp focus during a routine lockdown drill. Running it on a manual bell, it became immediately clear that the systems in place wouldn’t hold up when it mattered most. Something had to change.  

What drew Aldersley to Audiebant wasn’t a single feature, it was the absence of compromise. Audio, screens, mobile alerts, professional audio production, and safety functionality, all managed from one place. For a school managing a large, complex site with diverse needs across different spaces, that mattered enormously. 

“It felt to me that this was the first time that I’d seen something that would just do everything that we needed in one package- and it’s turned out to be the case.”  

Getting the system embedded across the school was straightforward from the start. Stephen trained on Audiebant himself first, then cascaded that to a small group of senior leaders- no specialist knowledge required, no lengthy onboarding process. The simplicity of the platform meant confidence came quickly, and the introduction of the Audiebant Control Portal has made the day-to-day experience even more intuitive. The school also has a resource base for pupils with SEND needs, where loud audio announcements aren’t appropriate. Audiebant’s combination of audio and screen-based messaging means those spaces are never left out, the right message reaches every part of the building in the right way.  

On safety, the shift has been just as significant. Professionally produced lockdown announcements don’t just sound different, they land differently.  

“Being able to train a number of staff on how to use Audiebant and to be able to call a lockdown- it reassured me as a headteacher that if the worst did happen, that we’d have a really strong system in place.”  

Last year’s Remembrance ceremony brought 1,500 students and staff together outside. For the first time, Stephen had the infrastructure to do the occasion justice.  

“We had 1,500 students and staff stood outside and really commented to me how memorable the experience was. We’ve never been able to do anything at that level and on that scale before- it was a really unifying moment for the school.”  

Since going live, Audiebant has stopped being something the school uses and started being something the school simply runs on. Students notice when it’s not there. There is still more to come- expanded zoning, more personalised audio, and a broader communications programme all in the pipeline.  

One sentence from Stephen captures it better than anything else could.  

“Audiebant is the essential you didn’t know you needed.”