Overview
Mandeville Primary School has requirements for two different spaces to provide the children with an interactive sensory environment for maximising their learning and a calming space where they could regulate when the school day became too much.
Their commitment to providing a secure, caring and stimulating environment really came across in our initial meeting to discuss their pupils’ requirements. Their passion to provide the children with the nurturing spaces they require were their top priority.
Client Brief
After identifying two spaces to expand the facilities they could offer the children, the school moved forward with discussing possible designs and an overall brief for the areas.
The first space was to be dedicated to creating a safe, calming zone for the children where they could decompress, regulate and return to the classroom for a positive learning experience.
The second room was a more traditional sensory space with interactive elements to provide great cause and effect learning and bring more interactive experiences into the school.
Design Process
Calming Room Design Process
The calming room was to be soft padded to provide a safe environment for the children. When experiencing struggles throughout the school day, they needed a space to take them where they could regulate and relax.
The school decided to include mood lighting, music and a projected visual to maximise the calming feel of the room and provide the children with some form of control over their space, with the inbuilt colour switches for a robust and fun solution. The pupils could then change the room colours to suit their mood.
Sensory Room Design Process
The sensory room included a great range of interactive products, from the popular Borealis Tube to the UV Interactive Tactile Panel and the wonderful Interactive Sensor Floor.
The Interactive Sensor Floor contains both calming and stimulating games to expand the children’s learning capacity with visuals, sounds and interactive features to suit any ability.
Installation Process
Prior to install, the school needed to make some changes to the calming room with a door move and wall going up. Once this was done, we were able to complete the survey for the padding.
One wall in the room was mainly glass panelling into the classroom, which we could easily board and pad this to provide a private, safe space for the pupils. A white pad was fitted for the projected image to ensure the best visual, and the rest of the room was our calming lavender shade with lilac on the floor.
An Apple TV was used to run the media projector, so the supervisors could display anything they knew would help to calm the child needing to regulate, whether this was a train chattering along a track or the rush of waves on the beach.
The installation went very smoothly, following a thorough survey with full sign off of both spaces within a week. The school did have a slight issue with the Apple TV, as their Wi-Fi signal turned out to be very weak in the calming room. To combat this, we provided an upgraded version to hard wire as part of the installation, ensuring they didn’t have any further issues.
As a company, we appreciate how important these spaces are for the children and that they must reliable and accessible at all times. This highlights the importance of taking the time throughout all stages of the process to ensure that all issues, even minor ones such as wifi, are rectified in a timely manner.
Completed Calming Room at Mandeville Primary School
Completed Sensory Room at Mandeville Primary School
Training Process
The engineers provided the school with full training for both rooms, to ensure the pupils could get the most out of the spaces.
There are always fun little features that are embedded into our products to give the children the best sensory experiences, which the engineers always love to share on completion!
A full user guide is also supplied for the Interactive Sensor Floor, so again the school can get the most from this, from creating their own games to having a playlist to suit everyone.
Conclusion
Overall, it was great to work with the school creating these important spaces for the pupils. The best feedback for us is to hear that these spaces work so well and are enjoyed and appreciated by the children.
Within the first week of installation, the school were reporting such positive feedback from the supervisors who had found that, once the children had gone into the room, their behaviour had improved much quicker than before, having the tools like the mood lighting and music to help them regulate. Although the children were still getting used to having this new facility, once they understood how it helped them, they would welcome the time in the calming room to help them relax.
The sensory room had quickly become a popular space as well, for different reasons, the children really were making the most of their new beneficial environments.
