School lanyards are an essential part of uniforms and workwear across all stages of the education sector. From staff to students, academic institutions across the UK use lanyards to provide identification and security.
Lanyards for Education and Safeguarding
Security and safety are paramount in school settings, and lanyards play a vital role in safeguarding policy using colour coding systems. By providing an instant visual clue, lanyards help staff members identify people on site, helping to differentiate students and staff from visitors or contractors carrying out repairs.
All our lanyards come with a safety break to ensure they come away from the neck easily when pulled. We keep the following pre-printed school lanyards in stock for rapid delivery at any time of the year:
- Student lanyards – available in black, blue, purple or red
- Staff lanyards – available in black, grey, red, or dark blue
- Visitor lanyards – available in red (contact us for other colours)
- Contractor lanyards – available in orange or yellow
By using door control policies and lanyard colour coding, you can ensure safeguarding standards are met at your school. More than just an important safety feature, school lanyards can also be incorporated into the uniform to provide a sense of belonging.
Using custom printing techniques, we can incorporate your school colours, crest, logo or motto into the design to make your lanyards unique to your institution
School Lanyard Uses
Both primary and secondary schools can use lanyards to differentiate staff and visitors. Lanyards are also sometimes used to separate classes of students, though this is more common in secondary schools as younger children are likely to lose their lanyard or fidget.
Popular Lanyard Uses in Primary and Secondary Schools
Most schools use colour-coded systems to differentiate between roles.
- Staff lanyards often feature the school logo with “STAFF” prominently displayed. Dark blue and grey are popular for staff members. Many schools choose to include a clip or ski pass extension on staff lanyards, allowing teachers to attach their keys and easily manage multiple classrooms or access cupboards throughout the day.
- Visitor lanyards typically use a bright, attention-grabbing colour – we stock bright red, though we can offer other colours on request. Choosing a bright colour makes it obvious when someone unfamiliar is on site and should be accompanied by a DBS checked member of staff, helping to maintain safeguarding standards.
- Student lanyards are more common in secondary schools but can be extremely useful, especially in large schools. Using colour coding systems, you can differentiate students by year group or class, helping teachers know which students should be where – useful if you find them roaming the halls when they’re supposed to be in class! More than helping teachers identify student, lanyards for schools can create a sense of identity and belonging as part of their school uniform.
- Sixth Form lanyards can be used just like any other student lanyard, but most schools choose to make sixth form lanyards unique in some way. Whether it’s different colours or text, sixth form lanyards should make these students stand out. Older students often act as role models for younger students and play a larger role in shaping their school as mentors, prefects or members of the school council.
Lanyard Uses for Colleges and Higher Education
Colleges and universities face different identification challenges to schools, as most colleges in the UK do not require uniforms except for on certain courses like nursing. With everyone being in casual clothes, this makes it even harder to identify staff and students on campus, making lanyards even more important in higher education settings.
Colleges and universities also often have less strict entry and exit policies as attendees are older and do not need to be monitored as closely. In city campus colleges/universities, buildings may be separate from the main campus building and accessed by scanning ID cards. Most colleges and universities choose to add rigid ID card holders to their lanyard order, allowing students to attach their photo IDs or access cards.
Popular Lanyard Uses in Colleges and Universities
Student lanyards help identify genuine students across multiple buildings and accommodation blocks. Whilst older students can be trusted to be more responsible, academic institutions still have safeguarding duties. When combined with ID cards and access systems, lanyards serve part of a wider security infrastructure.
Staff lanyards allow for clear role identification. Lecturers, security, and administrative personnel may have different coloured lanyards to distinguish different staff departments.
Course or department lanyards help identify students within specific areas. This is particularly useful in large colleges and universities where different departments occupy separate buildings, and colour coding systems can help identify students on the wrong part of campus.
Event lanyards are useful for busy event days such as open days, career fairs and throughout Fresher’s week. Lanyards can be used to identify external visitors and can be kept by participants after the event is over as a gift/promotional item with your branding everyone loves a freebie!)
Custom Lanyards for Education
Creating Your Custom Design
Using our inbuilt lanyard design tool, you can build your own personalised printed lanyards quickly and easily. It takes just a few minutes and allows you to upload and position your institution logo, choose colours and add text. You can also select additional lanyard accessories such as ski pass reels, clips or badge holders. If you’re struggling to design your lanyard, we show you how to use our personalised lanyard design tool on our blog or you can talk to our team for further guidance.
Practical Considerations
When designing lanyards for your academic environment, it’s good to remember the following:
- Safety breaks are essential, particularly for younger students. They’re designed to make sure that the lanyard snaps off easily if caught or pulled, preventing serious injury. We include safety breaks as standard on all our lanyards.
- Durability is important if you expect students to be using lanyards daily. Your school lanyards will have to last the full length of their educational journey; for universities and colleges this may only be 2-4 years, but for secondary schools this can be between 4-6 years if you have an attached sixth form. To ensure your lanyards last their whole school career, you should choose a high-quality lanyard manufacturer – like us at Just Lanyards!
- Badge holders and accessories add to the practical uses of your lanyard. ID card holders protect make photo identification easy for safeguarding purposes, and other accessories like ski pass reels can be used for keys.
- Quantity planning should account for new starters as well as replacements for lost or damaged lanyards.
Choosing the Right Printing Method
We recommend dye sublimation for custom printed school lanyards, as schools often have colourful and complex logos. By using dye sublimation, we can replicate complex designs easily with no limit on the number of colours. As the dye is directly impregnated into the fabric, we can print on both sides of the fabric simultaneously. There’s also no risk of the print cracking, so one lanyard will last a student their whole school career (provided they don’t lose it somewhere).
We also offer screen printing which may be more suitable for bold and simple logos or if you need precise colour matching. Which one is best for your school depends on several factors; you can learn more about dye sublimation vs screen printing on our guide to help you make your decision.
For help designing or ordering your school, college, or university lanyards our team are on hand to help!
Get in touch or start designing today!