Acoustic design of schools: performance standards 2014
Response to the public consultation by RNIB and VIEW
RNIB is a UK sight loss charity. It offers support and advice to blind and partially sighted people in the UK, helping people who have lost their sight to find their lives again. RNIB offers practical support, advice and information to anyone with sight loss and those who work with them. We support education professionals to work effectively with blind and partially sighted learners from birth to 25, including those with complex needs. Our goal is to ensure every child with sight loss has the best possible start in life and goes on to achieve their full potential.
VIEW is the association for the Education and Wellbeing of children and young people with Vision Impairment and aims to raise the standards of the education of children and young people with VI to improve outcomes for all learners 0 – 25yrs with vision impairment.
We welcome the opportunity to respond to this consultation as the acoustic environment plays an important role in supporting the learning and achievement of children and young people with a vision impairment and their independence and social and emotional wellbeing.
Q1
We welcome the proposed minimum refurbishment and change of use of premisesstandards. More new schools, in particular free schools are being developed in buildings that were originally designed for other purposes. RNIB and VIEW believe that standards for refurbishment should be the same standard as new build. The majority of children and young people with vision impairment are in mainstream settings and should have equal opportunities to a good acoustic environment in line with requirements of the Equality Act.
Q2
It is critical that the teacher can be heard clearly. However, synthetic speech is also essential for the use of certain equipment:
'The pupil may, in addition, rely on audio output from their equipment; text-to-speech is the most likely form, but there may also be various beeps and so in that are meaningful and supportive, to indicate capital letters for instance. For a child who relies heavily on listening to make sense of what is going on in the classroom, managing pupil noise levels is vital. In addition, it may help to control the noise or move a pupil further away from other sources of competing noise such as overhead interactive whiteboard projectors, heaters and printers.' (Vernon Webb for RNIB, 2013)
Evidence shows that synthetic speech is more difficult to discriminate than human speech and is more susceptible to background noise:
'According to Reynolds and Jefferson (1999), all the children who participated in their study had significantly fewer difficulties comprehending natural speech than synthetic speech. It is likely that the information-processing systems of both younger and older children were adversely affected by the impoverished acoustic-phonetic signals provided by synthetic speech'; and that 'synthetic speech suffers more degradation in the presence of background noise, which is present in most real-life listening situations, than does natural speech' (Fucci, Reynolds, Bettagere, & Gonzales, 1995).
Q3
Sound insulation between rooms is particularly important for the location of resource bases for children and young people with vision impairment in mainstream settings. They should be sited in remote areas where a quiet environment can be guaranteed for any withdrawal sessions that take place. It will also be helpful for housing equipment such as embossers for the production of Braille materials which, even when they are fitted with an acoustic hood, emit high levels of noise.
Q4
The issue of sound insulation between rooms and corridors is relevant to the issue of mobility and independence skills for children and young people with vision impairment. Competing sounds when developing early mobility skills and learning to navigate corridors independently are unhelpful.
Q5 and Q6
Reverberation is a key issue. Children and young people cannot rely on visual cues to supplement a lack of vision.
In addition, different locations such as dining halls, atria, swimming pools and sports halls can all provide useful audio cues for children and young people - if they are consistent and can be discriminated and located to aid mobility and orientation which relies on hearing.
Some times there is a 'creep' into multi-purpose use and, therefore, RNIB and VIEW consider that testing is essential to ensure suitable acoustics for differing purposes.
Q7
RNIB and VIEW would question whether the Alternative Performance Standards are too permissive: only exceptional educational, environmental or health and safety reasons should be allowed.
The implications of implementing the standards in practice should be explained through the impact on different groups of children and young people, such as those with vision impairment.
Q8
Open plan areas present particular challenges to children and young people with vision impairment. These types of open plan space can be particularly problematic for children and young people with vision impairment and other complex needs. They can produce sensory overload which may lead to challenging behaviours in some children.As in previous question, reverberation and echo-effects in open plan areas have an impact on mobility and orientation especially for those using long canes.
RNIB and VIEW agree with this suggestion as Speech Intelligibility should be covered by the other standards of acoustics although not defined by use.
Q9
A survey of primary school teachers (Ramma, 2009) revealed that most did not have adequate knowledge of classroom acoustics or the effects of poor acoustics on speech perception and learning. Most said that there education provided little information regarding classroom acoustics and how to manipulate or control the acoustics of their classroom.
Given this, RNIB and VIEW would wish to repeat the importance of pre-completion testing in schools against the standards which should be a requirement across all areas for school settings.
We would also recommend that there is greater emphasis placed on the requirement through the Equality Act 2012 to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and young people, which includes those with vision impairment. Schools have an anticipatory duty which is meant to prevent the failure of disabled children from benefitting from the environments in which they learn. The acoustic environment is of particular importance to disabled children who have special hearing and communication as a result of their inability to see clearly or at all.
Q10
Only nursery classes located within a school appear to be covered by the standards.
We have concerns about the significant number of young children with vision impairment in private, voluntary and independent sector early years settings which sit outside this consultation. We know that younger children have immature central auditory nervous systems which make them particularly vulnerable to the effects of poor classroom acoustics.
'Because of the consistent uncontrollable emission of sounds into the environment, human beings have little control over auditory input until they can learn to mask sounds by selective listening and perception, a skill not easily learned without adult supervision and guidance in calling attention to useful and meaningful sounds. To be able to determine which sounds have meaning is a difficult task without vision, and even more complicated when there is not body contact with the sound producing object. ' (Scholl G T, 1986)
A good acoustic environment is necessary for all young children whose language skills make it harder for them to pick out and attend to relevant information in a noisy environment but are vital for young children with vision impairment.
Contact details
RNIB
Julie Jennings
Manager Children, Young People and Families
Evidence and Service Impact
RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People)
105 Judd Street
London
WC1H 9NE
t: 0207 391 2142
m: 07850 643263
e:
VIEW
Judy Sanderson
Co-chair VIEW (Vision Impairment, Education and Wellbeing)
Reg Charity No: 277864
m: 07557372513
e:
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