When you call a lockdown, every device running Signal 7 shows it at once.
Signal 7 is a lockdown alert system for UK schools. One button puts a full-screen instruction on every Windows PC, laptop and tablet on your network, and shows you the confirmations coming back.
- Runs on a server in your school, on your own network
- Send to the whole site or to one building
- Staff confirm the room is safe with one press
- Where it runs
- On your networkAn on-premises server inside the school
- What it needs
- Windows PCs, laptops and tabletsThe machines you already have. Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android coming soon
- Who it reaches
- All of it, or one partWhole site, or a single building
- What comes back
- ConfirmationsCounted on the dashboard as they arrive
Three steps, and nothing else to remember
The whole product is one flow: raise it, every screen shows it, stand it down.
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Raise it
A member of your leadership team signs in to the Signal 7 dashboard and presses one button. They choose whether it goes to the whole site or to one building, and confirm before anything is sent.
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Every screen shows it
Every Windows PC, laptop and tablet running the Signal 7 client covers its screen immediately with the instruction. The person in the room cannot close it, minimise it or alt-tab away from it. It stays up until you stand it down.
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Stand it down
When it is over you send All Clear from the same dashboard and the screens release. The whole incident is written to the activation log.
The alert flow, on the real screens
Three states of one incident, as the product actually draws them. Step through them, or play them in order. Nothing moves until you ask it to. Below them, two minutes of the software running end to end, and the four steps an alert takes across a site.
1. Raise it. Choose the zone, read the message that will go out, confirm. Two deliberate steps, so it cannot happen by a stray click.
2. Every screen shows it. The classroom PC is taken over, the alarm sounds, and there is one thing to press.
3. Stand it down. All Clear from the dashboard releases every screen, and the room is told the alert is over.
How an alert travels
Four steps, start to finish. Step through it yourself, or let it play.
Press Play, or choose a step, to follow what happens.
- Staff press Lockdown. On any staff PC, in the admin interface.
- The server receives it. The Signal 7 server, on site, on your own network.
- Every classroom PC shows it. Full screen, over whatever was on the screen.
- All clear returns them. Staff stand the alert down and screens go back to normal.
Every step runs on a server in your school, on your own network. In the on-premises install there is no cloud component and no alert data leaves your site.
What the person running the incident sees
The whole site on one screen
Every zone, its state and the machines connected to it, in one list. On a normal day it reads System Clear and tells you how many classroom PCs are online — so you know the system is there before you need it, not after.
Who has confirmed safe, as it happens
Staff press one button on the classroom screen. The dashboard counts the confirmations as they arrive, zone by zone, so the person running the incident can see the alert is landing and which rooms have not answered yet.
Light or dark, on whatever is in the office
The dashboard works on a desktop, a laptop or a tablet, and switches between a light and a dark theme. The classroom alert does not: a lockdown screen is red, an All Clear is green, and that never changes with a setting.
Windows PCs, laptops and tablets today. Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android coming soon.
The alert appears on every device running the Signal 7 client. Today that means the Windows machines your school already has — including Windows tablets, which run the same client as a desktop. Our board has committed to the rest, and we would rather tell you what is not built yet than let a row of logos imply it is.
- Windows PC Available today
- Windows laptop Available today
- Windows tablet Available today
- Mac and MacBook Coming soon
- iPhone, iPad and Android Coming soon
A Mac client and a phone app, so the alert reaches past the Windows estate
Signal 7 today alerts the Windows PCs, laptops and tablets running the client. That leaves two gaps schools name straight away: the Macs in the art block or the head’s office, and the people who are not at a screen at all — the cook, the site team, a class out on the field. Our board has committed to closing both, with a macOS client and with an app for iPhone, iPad and Android that receives the same alert at the same moment.
Neither is available yet, and we are not going to imply otherwise. Both are on the roadmap after the core system. There is no release date, and we will not invent one — when there is a date it will be on this page. Until the app exists, your lockdown plan still needs its own route to staff away from a screen, and a Mac on your site is not alerted today.
The questions you only get to ask once
An alert system is judged on the bad day, not the demo. These are the answers we would want if we were buying it.
The alert stays inside the school
Signal 7 is on-premises. The server sits on your network, the alert travels across that network, and alert data does not leave your site. There are no pupil records in it either — the only people in the database are the staff you give a sign-in to.
It cannot go off by accident
Sending an alert takes two deliberate steps: choose the zone, then tick a box confirming it is a genuine emergency. The message that will appear on the screens is shown before it goes.
A machine cannot claim to be somewhere it is not
If you alert one building, the server decides which machines are in that building from the network itself. A PC does not get to say where it is.
Afterwards, there is a record
Every activation is written to the log: what was sent, to which zones, by whom, when it was stood down, and how many rooms confirmed safe. That is what you review the drill against.
Three people have to agree, and they want different answers
Signal 7 is for UK primary, secondary and special schools that already have a lockdown procedure and want a faster, quieter way to raise it, run it and stand it down. It is a single-site system: one school’s network, one site or a cluster of buildings on that network. In most schools three people have to say yes, so here is the honest case for each of them.
If you are the headteacher or safeguarding lead
You already carry the duty. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require every employer to have procedures for serious and imminent danger, and Martyn’s Law puts those procedures on a statutory footing for school premises. Both are about the procedure, not a product: no law requires a lockdown system, and nothing you buy can make you compliant.
Signal 7 is a way to operate the procedure you already need. One person decides, every classroom screen changes at once, and you can watch the school respond rather than guess. Be straight with your team about the edge of it: Signal 7 alerts the Windows PCs, laptops and tablets on your site, so for staff away from a screen — catering, the site team, an outdoor lesson — your plan still has to say what the other route is. A Mac client and a phone app are committed and coming soon, but neither is here yet and your plan cannot be written around them.
If you are the school business manager
You should be able to find out what this costs without booking a call, so the price goes on the pricing section of this page in plain figures, with what is included written next to it. There is no outside service carrying your alerts and nothing else to subscribe to for it to work — it runs on a server inside the school.
Two things worth knowing before you spend any time on us. We are a small company and we would rather say so than have you find out later. And there is no standard and no certification scheme for lockdown alerting systems in the UK. Nobody can certify us — and nobody can certify any other supplier either.
If you are the IT lead or network manager
A server on your own network and a Windows client on the desktops, laptops and Windows tablets the school already has. Zones are matched by network subnet, decided on the server, so a machine cannot claim to be in a building it is not in. No alert data leaves the site, and there is no remote console on our side — which also means backups, patching and accounts are yours, not ours.
The thing you would find in the first five minutes, so we will say it here: the client installer is not code-signed yet, and Windows will warn on first install. What has and has not been tested is written down on the questions page rather than smoothed over.
The detail behind all three sits on How it works and Questions.
One school, one licence, one yearly figure
One school, one site, one annual licence. Here is what that covers; tell us about your school and we will quote for it.
What a licence covers
One school, one site. The server runs on your own network and the classroom software goes on the Windows PCs, laptops and tablets that site already has.
Billed once a year
An annual licence, quoted for the school year, so it sits in one budget line rather than arriving in pieces.
No service in the middle
Signal 7 runs on a server inside the school. There is no outside service carrying your alerts, and nothing else to subscribe to for it to work.
Pricing tailored to your school. Contact us for a quote.
The ones schools actually ask
Which computers does it put the alert on?
Any Windows desktop, laptop or tablet on your network running the Signal 7 client — classroom machines, office PCs, a staff laptop, a Surface in a workshop, a PC driving a hall display. The client is installed once and starts with the machine. A Mac client and an iPhone, iPad and Android app are committed and coming soon; neither is available yet.
Can we send a lockdown to one building rather than the whole school?
Yes. You define zones for your site, and when you raise an alert you choose the whole site or a single zone. The server works out which machines are in that zone from the network, so the decision is not left to the device.
Does the alert data go to the cloud?
No. The server runs inside your school and the alert travels over your own network. Alert data stays on site.
Does this make us compliant with Martyn's Law?
No software can, and we will not tell you otherwise. Martyn's Law — the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 — requires procedures, not products, and the Department for Education's lockdown guidance is non-statutory. What Signal 7 does is help you operate the procedure you already need to have.
There is also no British Standard and no certification scheme for lockdown alerting systems. We looked for one. If a supplier implies they are certified, ask them which scheme.
How do staff confirm their room is safe?
One button on the alert screen. The dashboard counts the confirmations as they arrive and shows which zones have not answered. The count goes into the activation log with the rest of the incident.
What does it cost?
Pricing tailored to your school. Contact us for a quote.
Can we see it running before we decide anything?
Yes — that is what a demo is for. We will show you the dashboard, the classroom screen and a full lockdown and All Clear, on test data, and you can ask the awkward questions while it is in front of you.
Every question schools ask us — including what Signal 7 does not do.
See Signal 7 on your own screens
A short demo of the dashboard, the classroom alert and a full stand-down. No pressure, and we will answer the hard questions first.