In the world of education, creating an environment that accommodates the diversity of student’s needs, many of which are not immediately visible, is critical both practically and neurologically to ensure the very best learning experience. Many students have sensory sensitivity to aspects like noise and colour which if not considered for, can impact on their quality of learning experience and wellbeing.

Even for those without specific sensory issues, unmanaged noise will have an impact on cognition, behaviour, learning capacity, concentration and learning outcomes.

And noise also has an impact on the wellbeing (physically and mentally) and effectiveness of those whose passion it to teach, coach and support learners, including causing fatigue, stress and distraction.

This is set against a background where the fostering and development of essential communication and thinking skills are so critical, including collaboration, inclusive working together, creative and critical thinking, and the importance of having an environment that supports and manages these.

Learning environment acoustics are even more important when teaching children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) who may need to be taught in spaces with lower noise levels and shorter reverberation times, often in smaller groups to reduce ambient noise and to minimize the distance between teacher and pupil.

Although noise in not helpful, sounds are vital – and hearing is critical to children’s speech & language development – remember you can imagine what you haven’t seen if someone describes but you can’t imagine what you didn’t hear. Up to 40% of children in some primary schools in the UK have some form of hearing impediment. Couple this with any other learning needs, or if English is an additional language, any unmanaged noise will have a serious detrimental impact on learning.

There have been considerable studies and guidance is available from a number of sources;

The 2003 Part E of the Building Regulations (as amended) has been applied to schools in the form of the first section of Building Bulletin 93 which sets out the statutory requirements for acoustics in schools and states that:

“Each room or other space in a school building shall be designed and constructed in such a way that it has the acoustic conditions and the insulation against disturbance by noise appropriate to its intended use.”

A helpful guide is published by the Institute of Acoustics and Association of Noise Consultants to accompany the revised DfE acoustic performance standards for Education.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that, to be able to hear and understand spoken messages in classrooms, the background noise should not exceed 35dB during teaching sessions.

And there are many other studies and recommendations that apply to specific situations or spaces.

But back to the real challenge - education spaces come in all shapes, sizes and construction, both inside and outside… from traditional ceramic-tiled Victorian classrooms to modern buildings with large open-plan spaces and lots of glass - and everything in between - with the majority constructed with very little or no acoustic management including some of today’s modern schools, with many unwanted building and services noise and poor reverberation time (echo) within the learning spaces.  

And the challenge is often not the situation itself, but how best to resolve it, what solutions to use and where and how these can be practically installed to ensure the recommended reverberation time (echo) is met or improved - and to do this with consideration for how the space needs to be used, aesthetics, durability, maintenance, colour management and not least, with care for our environment - to create a winning, working and long lasting environment.

This is where Four Square excel – we work, together with acoustic consultants to help support education estates personnel and specifiers to design, plan, programme and install acoustic solutions that really succeed.