St Georges Primary School in Westhoughton is one of only a handful of schools within the Greater Manchester area to have a church within the school building. The Church is used weekly by the parishioners of St. Georges as well as on a daily basis by the school as an assembly hall.
For a number of years the hall had been blighted by poor acoustics, with excessive reverberation causing problems during singing, worship, and general communication. A solution was clearly needed and the Head of St. George’s, Mr Ivory, approached Sound Reduction Systems’ (SRS) qualified acousticians for advice on what could be done.
Technical Director Richard Sherwood MIOA visited St. George’s to carry out a school acoustics survey and, using the information collected, produced a detailed report detailing how SRS’s mineral fibre free Sonata Vario absorbers could be used to solve the problem.
Following discussions with Mr Ivory and after receiving the go-ahead from the board of Governors, St. George’s opted to install Sonata Vario panels to the ceiling only, preferring instead for them to be at high level out of harm’s way rather than on the walls.
Before and after treatment measurements of the reverberation time were taken to demonstrate the exact improvement given by the panels. Much to everyone’s delight, the measurements showed that the Sonata Vario panels were actually working more efficiently than had initially been predicted.
Prior to treatment the overall reverberation time (T60) was measured at 2.06s and the mid-frequency reverberation time (Tmf) at 2.48s. Following installation of just less than 35m2 of suspended Sonata Vario acoustic panels the overall reverberation time (T60) was reduced to 1.22s and the mid-frequency reverberation time (Tmf) to 1.23s. The area of absorbers installed represented less than 25% of the area of the ceiling. Looking beyond the figures, the improvement was clearly noticeable, especially within the frequencies present with in speech. Communication will now be so much easier within the hall.
Both staff and pupils alike are delighted with the improvement. Headteacher Philip Ivory commented: “The hall sounds much, much better. A cracking job has been done - please thank all your team.”
The installation of the Sonata Vario acoustic panels was carried out by our expert fitting team and was completed at the School’s convenience in less than a day. To view a video of the installation condensed into 20 seconds see below:
If your school has a reverberation problem and would like some free advice then please do not hesitate to get in touch via our website here: http://www.soundreduction.co.uk/acoustic-estimate-reg/. Alternatively, if you would like to speak to a human being give us a call on 01204 380074 or send us an email at info@soundreduction.co.uk and we’ll get right back to you.
