Three building types, three different problems, and the same law over all of them. A school is full of people who evacuate on command but cannot be left to work it out. A hotel is full of strangers who are asleep. A care home is full of people who cannot leave unaided. The alarm specification for each follows from which of those it is.
Schools
Evacuation in a school is drilled, supervised and fast, which removes most of the argument for very early detection and puts the weight on audibility everywhere including noisy spaces and outbuildings, on reliable weekly testing, and on managing false alarms. Repeated unwanted alarms in a school are a genuine safety problem because they train several hundred people to respond slowly. Government guidance for school premises addresses fire safety specifically.
Hotels and guest accommodation
Sleeping strangers are the hardest case in fire safety: they do not know the building, they will not have read a notice, and they are unconscious when the fire starts. That pushes specifications towards detection in bedrooms as well as circulation, audibility inside rooms with the door closed, and clear instructions on the back of the door. Guidance for sleeping accommodation exists and is published free.
Care homes
Where occupants cannot evacuate unaided, the strategy is usually progressive horizontal evacuation rather than getting everybody outside, which means the alarm has to work with the compartmentation and with staffing levels rather than simply sounding everywhere. Staff response is part of the safety system, so the alarm design and the staffing model cannot be decided separately. Dedicated guidance covers residential care premises.
The shared point
In all three the alarm is one component of a strategy that includes compartmentation, escape routes, staff training and drills. A building can have an excellent system and an unsafe strategy. The risk assessment is where the two are reconciled, which is why the assessment and not the alarm is the first thing an inspector asks about.
Questions people ask about fire alarms in schools
Do hotel bedrooms need smoke detection?
Sleeping accommodation usually warrants detection in bedrooms as well as circulation, because occupants are asleep and unfamiliar with the building. The category is set by the fire risk assessment using the sleeping accommodation guidance.
Why do care homes not evacuate everybody at once?
Because many residents cannot leave unaided. Progressive horizontal evacuation moves people to an adjoining fire compartment first, which depends on compartmentation and staffing as much as on the alarm.
Are school fire alarms subject to different rules?
The same law applies. What differs is the risk profile: drilled evacuation, high occupancy, noisy spaces and a real cost to false alarms, which shapes the design rather than the legal duty.