Overview
The Children’s Trust is the UK’s leading charity for children with brain injuries. The school is a non-maintained special provision dedicated to the education, health, therapy and care of children aged 2-19.
Client Brief
The school required a flexible approach to the room that they had allocated, which would be a yoga-type studio with calming lighting and portable products to bring in when desired. The space needed to be safe and comfortable for the children, whilst being practical and minimal to engage the children and encourage focus.
We were asked to engage in a full tender process to provide the trust with detailed documentation and information to reflect our competencies, expertise and trade qualifications, as well as independent references they could contact with similar systems.
Design Process
The main area of the room was padded with wall padding up to 1m high, and the floor area to match with a slightly firmer foam to suit the pupils’ needs. The opposite wall was covered with safe acrylic mirrors, providing them reflections of themselves as they participated in yoga and therapy work. We also incorporated mood lighting and a sound system, which provided calming effects and music which, when not in use, would not be a distraction to users.
In addition, the portable products included in the room were a Borealis Tube featuring 16 varied dancing light sequences, and our new Snowstorm Tube. As portable equipment, these can easily maneuver around the space in preparation for sessions, or taken out of the room to accommodate more space for users.
To accompany our systems and equipment, a variety of switches were included to bring the products to life for the children. These included colour switches, as well as single on/off switching for more basic cognitive cause and effect learning. In addition, supervisors can plug in any personal accessible switches such as ‘tilt’, ‘jumbo’ or ‘flip’ switches. This provides the school with the inclusive requirements for the children to ensure everyone could be involved.
Installation and Training
The room was measured by our design engineer to ensure the best fit for the padding, which is completely bespoke. The sockets were ‘cut around’ to ensure the portable products could be used around the room, with a vinyl flap to conceal them from the children when not in use.
The system was installed during term time, with the engineers taking great care to keep within the room and only move around when the children were in class. All our engineers are DBS certified as standard, and take the consideration of the children and staff very seriously when installing the products to cause as little disruption as possible.
Once the system had been completed, the lead engineer provided a training session on the mood lighting selection panel, bluetooth system and operation of the portable tubes with their interactive switches. All was very successful, and the children are now enjoying their new space!
Completion
This sensory room on the surface was a simple room design, but with complex additions to ensure the system was completely accessible and inclusive for the young people. We achieved a very flexible platform which now provides the staff with interchangeable user experience, from calming, to movement orientated and interactive.
The system is a great example of how you can maintain a minimal, safe environment with the ability to make it as interactive and stimulating as possible using the concealed sensory products and wireless switching for powerful cause and effect learning.
