Apart from the health implications for individual teachers, the survey's findings thus suggested that poor classroom acoustics could be associated with the additional cost and educational implications of sickness in teachers. In fact we discovered that the majority of primary schools have been designed without classroom acoustics in mind, leading to speech intelligibility problems for the pupils and added stress for teachers. The report was part funded by Ecophon Ltd, manufacturers of ceiling systems, who fitted a number of test classrooms with acoustic ceilings. The results, notes Sharon Airey, could be dramatic. Acoustic ceilings have been fitted at classrooms at Balgreen Primary School, and Headmistress Miss Catherine Douglas was so impressed by the resulting improvement that she is pushing for all of the school's classrooms to be similarly treated.
Staff working in the treated classrooms say there's an enormous difference.
Not only do they not have to shout to be heard, but there's a generally calmer, quieter and more relaxed atmosphere in the classroom, which has positive effects on behaviour and reflects the ethos of the school. We're all delighted. The research was undertaken in recognition that not only was there an inadequate level of guidelines, standards or advice available to architects, designers, local authorities or schools on the building or adaptation of classrooms, but that even the research on which such advice might have been based was inadequate. It measures the reduction of a signal between source and receiver. This is an objective measure of the quality of speech arriving at a particular point in the room, and is an excellent indication of speech intelligibility.