Acoustic requirements of schools advice for Teachers of the Deaf attending Tribunals Acoustic recommendations for schools were

e published in 1997 under Building Bulletin 87. In this guidance, levels of ambient noise, and reverberation time were specified. These measures were not the same for all the rooms within a school and some specific workspaces were given different recommendations. Building bulletin 87 was later revised (Building Bulleting 87 Revised 2003) and incorporated measures for Hearing Units and more stringent limits of acoustic performance for rooms where hearing-impaired children would be taught. Building Bulletin 93 (2003) incorporated all the revisions of BB 87 and increased the scope of the recommendations to include a wider range of workspaces within a school. BB93 differed from BB87 in that the recommendations became a legal requirement rather than simply guidelines. This is reflected in the title of each document; BB87 was entitled Guidelines whereas BB93 is referred to as a compliance document. It is important to understand that these documents set out the recommendations for all aspects of a school build. The documents refer to many facets of the building, including ventilation and light, as well as acoustics. Each facet of a school build has recommendations appropriate to that feature. The acoustic environment is specified in the document for the purpose of informing the building contractors who will build the school. It is safe to assume that all schools built post 2003 will comply with the acoustic limits specified in BB93. This is assured by the fact that BB93 is a legal recommendation and builders who do not comply with these recommendations risk having that part of the building torn down and rebuilt. Building Inspectors are involved throughout the building and advise on compliance of the recommendations in all facets of the build. It is less safe to assume that schools built post 1997 will comply with the recommendations of BB87 as this document did not carry a legal obligation. However, there are no reasons to suspect that the building does not comply, as reference would have been made to the current recommendations of the time. Schools built before 1997 were not bound by regulations or recommendations for the acoustic environment. Some schools are clearly outside the requirements of current legislation, for example, where high vaulted ceilings are present.

It is possible to take measurements of the acoustic environment of any school, using specialist equipment. The purchase cost of the equipment is high and it is often preferable to hire the equipment for the duration of the measurements. In a typical school it is likely to take a week or more to take measurements of the different learning environments. It should be borne in mind that the acoustic specifications refer to unoccupied classrooms in fact unoccupied schools. The ambient noise measures refer to external noises, such as road noise, as well as internal noise generated from ventilation and heating systems. The specifications do not refer to noise from adjacent classrooms (when occupied) or infrequent external noises (temporary road works or aircraft noise). Acoustic conditions change immensely when children and furniture are present in the classroom. Undoubtedly, reverberation time (the echo effect) gets shorter (improves) when soft surfaces, such as children, are placed in the room. The number of children, their place in the room and the amount of furniture, all affect the acoustics of the room making it impossible to take any meaningful measure of the environment. It is for this reason that the acoustic specifications are for unoccupied schools only. Relevant measures: Measurements of the acoustic environment can be made using specialist equipment. Norsonic produce a room acoustics kit for the quantification of classroom acoustics for the suitability of teaching in accordance with BB93. This equipment can be bought or hired from Campbell Associates Ltd (www.campbell-associates.co.uk). Measures should be taken of the reverberation time and background (ambient) noise. The results can then be compared with the specifications in Tables 1 &2. Measurements of speech intelligibility and signal to noise ratios can be taken but are complex in nature and rarely (if ever) used at Tribunal hearings. Their measurement and interpretation are outside the scope of this paper. For a full description of these, see relevant sections of BB93.

Table 1
Notes for Table 1 *Research indicates that teaching can be disrupted by individual noisy events such as aircraft flyovers, even where the average noise level is below the limits in Table 1.1. For rooms identified in Table 1.1 having limits of 35 dB or less the maximum noise level should not regularly exceed 55 dB LAmax,F due to any foreseeable event likely to occur on a normal school day.

Table 2 Table 2 carries the following note regarding hearing-impaired pupils:

2] For schools which specialise in teaching hearing-impaired pupils in mainstream education the reverberation time in spaces such as general teaching where speech intelligibility is important will need to be reduced to 0.4 seconds or less, across the frequency range 125Hz 4000Hz (see BB93 Section 6, Design of acoustic criteria for pupils with hearing impairments).

There are no room-specific measures, additional to those in Table 2, recommended for HI pupils. The note above makes the recommendation that in teaching areas (classrooms) the 4

reverberation time be reduced to 0.4 seconds rather than between 0.4 to 0.8 seconds. This is merely a recommendation of the lower limit for reverberation time. Additional to this note, the document details specialist organisations recommendations for HI pupils:
Because it is not possible at present to provide definitive acoustic requirements for hearing-impaired individuals it is appropriate for acousticians and architects to be aware of the requirements published by specialist professional organisations. These include the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf [5] and the American Speech Language Hearing Association [6].

The specifications in Table 3 are recommendations only and are not a legal requirement of a new build. They might rightly be regarded as aspirational in rooms where this is possible. The Table is accompanied by the following note:
At present there is little empirical data that specifically addresses the acoustic criteria for the hearing-impaired school population.

Summary In practice, we need only consider reverberation time and ambient noise measures. Full instructions for their measurement are included with the specialist equipment. It is possible to calculate the reverberation time of a room by measuring its dimensions and factoring in the absorption coefficient of the various surfaces in the room. The absorption coefficients and calculations are available from Educational Audiology services. Ambient noise measures can be taken using a conventional sound level meter able to measure to a specific frequency bandwidth. The specifications are made between 125Hz and 4000Hz. Measurements should be taken for a duration of 30 seconds within a metre of the four corners of the room and in the centre of the room. All measurements should be taken at a metre from the floor. Signal to noise ratio measurements are, as mentioned earlier, complex in nature. However, a simple measure can be made by 5

measuring the ambient noise level and by measuring the level of the teachers voice at an average point in the classroom. If the ambient noise level were found to be 40dBA and the teachers voice level was 70dBA then the signal to noise ratio would be +30dB. This measurement can be made for different points in the classroom if desired (perhaps the HI child is always sited at the front of the class nearest the teacher). It is important to remember that acoustic conditions outside the limits specified in BB93 are not a reason in themselves to remove a HI pupil from the school. The school should have a plan to address features of the school which might prove to be a barrier to disabled pupils (ref: DDA). This is the Schools Accessibility Plan and should detail improvements and adaptations over a three-year period. Improvements to the acoustic environment would be included in this plan where advised by the ToD or Educational Audiologist. This would be a valid answer at Tribunal. It is also essential to bear in mind that Radio FM systems play a large part in overcoming the disadvantages of a poor acoustic environment. FM systems reduce the effect of high ambient noise levels and high reverberation time. They are particularly useful in improving the signal to noise ratio, which is a major factor in improving speech intelligibility.