Restricting iOS devices

Hi,
I am in the process of investigating a rollout of many iPods and iPads to a large school based environment.

I noticed that at the apple shop and big department stores the iOS devices have some sort of restrictions applied to them, beyond the normal restrictions in Settings > General > Restrictions.

I was wondering if any of you out there know how apple do this because it would be a great advantage if I could apply these restrictions and possibly more (because the normal restriction options is nowhere near enough).

My guess is that it is some sort of configuration profile that is loaded on, or it could even be an app that apple load that does all these crazy things.

Thanks,
-praemus

Describe several of the restrictions, then perhaps someone can give constructive feedback.