Case Study: Enhancing acoustics in a special needs schools, The Medway Green School hall challenge

Medway Green School - Multi Use Hall

Medway Green School contacted us for help tackling the acoustic issues they were facing in their main school hall. Medway Green School is a special needs school for children and caters for students with a wide range of social, emotional and mental health needs, including autistic spectrum conditions, in an environment designed to ensure they always feel safe and supported.

The hall is a multi use space that is used for just about everything, from school dinners, PE, small group learning and assemblies. However the nature of internal composition of the building created a space that was acoustically very bright. The wooden floor and plasterboard walls and ceilings meant that the room would get extremely loud and noisy rendering the room practically unusable even for lunches.

“It really is so noisy that a lot of our students have resorted to using ear-defenders to deaden some of the sound, and staff wish they could use them too.”

Facilities Manager

The requirements Medway Green School provided included;

• A competitively priced fire rated solution that met the required building standards
• An Acoustical solution that didn’t interfere with the use of the building for light sports and PE especially not keen on a suspended solution.
• An acoustical solution that was ideally not grey or black with preference for something that added colour to the space.

The requirements provided lent themselves well to our Melaflex foam panels which are not only high performing absorbers but are a cheaper option per square meter when compared to fibreglass alternatives.

Medway green school provided us images and measurements of their school . Armed with this, our technical team set about acoustically modelling the school hall, using EASE, an advanced acoustical modelling programme to determine the optimum configuration of melaflex panels that would meet the key requirements of the school, improving the acoustics whilst keeping costs to a minimum.

Using the analysis we determined the number of our standard Melaflex flat panels that would deliver the improvement required in the hall reducing the reverberation time and improving speech intelligibility down to acceptable levels.

The proposed solution was forwarded on to Medway green school who agreed to proceed with the solution.

Installing the solution

All our commercial, education and public solutions come with detailed placement instructions to ensure customers make the most of the products we supply. Medway green school was supplied with placement diagrams detailing where each panel was to be fixed as well as the adhesive required to mount the panels. Instructions on handling the material were also supplied and delivery was arranged to ensure the panels could be safely received and stored.

Results

The results of the installation speak for themselves this is what the facilities manager had to say.

“The results have surpassed my expectations, the panels have worked fantastically well and have greatly improved the acoustics in the hall, our students now enjoy using the space and one even commented that the hall doesn’t hurt his ears anymore”

Conclusion

We were pleased to be given the opportunity to help Medway green school with this project. Our extensive knowledge and expertise in tackling the most challenging acoustic problems proved invaluable in delivering a solution that delivered the desired results whilst keeping costs to a minimum. We are pleased to see that the students can now enjoy this multi use space and make the most of their time at the school.

If you have any space or room that needs acoustic treatment why not contact us and we will only be too happy to help you on your journey today.

About Melaflex Evo Acoustic Panels

Melalfex Evo panels offer a great solution to the most challenging acoustical solutions because;

• They are extremely light and can be added retrospectively with non destructive methods to any surface including listed buildings.
• Mounting of melaflex panels is easily accomplished with impalers or as in the case of Medway green school using a purées designed heavy spray adhesive. This means that organisations and institutions looking to keep costs down can easily install the panels themselves reducing total acquisition costs by upto 50%.
• Melaflex foam is supplied in brilliant white or light grey meaning that for most educational institutions they will not appear intrusive, instead blending into the walls and ceiling, diligently carrying out their work of improving the acoustics in the room they are installed in.
• Unlike fibreglass panels, melaflex panels can be shaped into any 3 D shape with profiles being cut to match existing features or to introduce interesting aesthetics to the room they are installed in.
• Finally melaflex foam is a Class ‘0’ foam meeting the most stringent fire ratings out there lending themselves well to use in public sector, education and commercial spaces.