Building schools for the future

Thermatile Plus radiant acoustic panels help reduce ambient noise levels and reverberation time and thus improve the acoustics in classrooms.

With increasing building technology and awareness, progressively more severely deaf pupils are being educated in conventional mainstream schools.

The British government is encouraging this by introducing the 'Building Schools for the Future' program where every secondary school in England will be upgraded as part of a GBP5 billion programme to improve school facilities.

One of the recommended standards set out in the government's 'Building Schools for the Future' programme is the improvement of acoustics in classrooms for existing and new build schools.

This is aimed at helping both hearing, but in particular deaf pupils to study by reducing ambient noise levels and reverberation time.

Ambient noise comes from many different sources including heating/ventilation units, activity in adjoining classrooms, transportation noise, pupil activity within the same classroom, or any combination of these.

Reverberation is the numerous reflections of sounds within a room that can lengthen and distort the original sound components.

Clearness of speech can be compromised when a subtle vocal element is masked by the reflected sound of a preceding louder element.

Reverberation also has the effect of amplifying ambient noises.

These two important ingredients of an acoustically optimised classroom, low ambient noise level and a low reverberation time are essential in providing an environment for pupils that meet the standards set by the government's latest scheme.

With many older schools built with high concrete ceilings and equipped with stand-alone heating/ventilation units, it is suggested that these schools will not meet the recommended standards without modification.

SPC have introduced an acoustic radiant ceiling panel that can be used for both heating and cooling.

The Thermatile Plus radiant panel can be supplied as a perforated acoustic panel (optional) to help reduce ambient noise levels and reverberation time and thus improve the acoustics of a room such as a classroom, conference room or lecture theatre amongst others.

Thermatile Plus radiant panels can be supplied perforated for visible or invisible acoustic performance.

To provide an invisible acoustic barrier, the radiant panel can be covered in a thin layer of acoustic plasterwork.

The panels can also be manufactured to suit the required reverberation time specified by the consultant by increasing/decreasing the perforated hole diameter.

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