Improving Acoustics in School & Classroom

Improving the acoustics in a school classroom
Hard materials are often used in the interior of a school building. No carpeting on the floors and little upholstered furniture or curtains. Together with high walls and ceilings, and the large dimensions of the classroom, this is a recipe for poor acoustics. The walls and ceiling in a school classroom reflect sound and causes reverberation. This is what causes bad acoustics.

Poor acoustics leads to poor intelligibility, reduced concentration and productivity for students teachers alike. In the long run it may cause health problems, stress and fatigue. Investing in good acoustics will pay off in the future. And on top of this, you improve the well-being of teachers and students.

How to improve school classroom acoustics?
In most school classrooms the walls are to be blamed for most of the echo and reverberation, reflections of sound. To make sure this is the cases in your situation, you can preform the 'hand clap test'. Stand in a few different places of the room and clap your hands as loud as you can. With this little test you can immediately find out where the first reflections coming from. This will be the walls and in large rooms the ceiling, the spots where you want the acoustics panels to be installed.

Start with providing acoustic panels to the back wall of the classroom, cover about a third of this wall, and a secondary wall on the left or right side of the classroom as well. Acoustic panels, such as Akotherm SF or a Flamex Basic, are perfect for the job. This should already give a dampened effect, depending on the size of the classroom. We do recommend to install acoustics panels on the ceiling as well in a larger classroom. With a larger classroom we mean classrooms about 15 by 20 meters or larger.

To improve the acoustics in a classroom the Akotherm Cloud acoustic panel is also a very playful option, it really dresses the classroom in a fun way. If there is little space on a wall(s), the ceiling will also provide an excellent solution. If you choose to go with just a ceiling solution, provide at least 70% of the ceilings surface with acoustic panels to get a good result. The following products are also suitable for improving classroom acoustics:

Soundstone
Drop down, suspended ceiling tiles
Akotherm Edge
Acoustic panels for walls and ceilings
Flamex Edge
Acoustic panels for walls and ceilings
Flamex Basic
Acoustic panels for walls and ceilings

Advice on classroom acoustics in schools
If you're not familiar with acoustics and not sure on how to proceed, just let us know, we are happy to help you out. Send us your questions along with a picture of the room. Advice is free and so are product samples.

Products to improve the acoustics in schools

Improving Acoustics at School