Kemball Special School gets a Soundfield System installed

Location: Stoke-on-Trent
Client: Kemball Special School
Integrator: Midland Communications

Client:

Kemball Special School is an entire new-build project to provide an inspiring learning environment for pupils with profound, multiple learning difficulties within the Stoke city area.

Built under the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) and opened in September 2013, Kemball Special School currently supports 69 pupils but has future capacity for 140 pupils aged 2-19 years old with a diverse range of learning and physical disabilities.

Pupils have a wide range of needs; from moderate learning difficulties to profound special needs and visual & hearing impairments.

System Requirements:

To ensure teachers are not having to raise their voices and to reduce problems of voice strain, each of the school's classrooms features a permanently installed Soundfield voice reinforcement system with wireless microphone.

Using the Soundfield System, the teacher's voice level is discretely raised (without being 'loud') to a level of clarity which benefits every child in the classroom, no matter where they sit.

As the systems utilise infrared wireless microphone technology, they are not limited by licence, channel or interference issues and a teacher can move from classroom to classroom with the same microphone which will automatically become active within that specific space.

The Solution:

Among the many special additions and technologies featured throughout the school, each of the 25 classrooms has been fitted with a Soundfield Classroom Voice Reinforcement System specified and supplied by CIE-Group.

Soundfield classroom audio systems are an infrared, wireless microphone system worn by the teacher to lift the level of their voice to a volume suitable for each individual environment or activity.
Special Needs classrooms can be inherently more noisy environments and, with high pupil numbers at Kemball School having hearing impairments, ensuring that the teacher is heard clearly throughout the room is essential.

The Soundfield systems can also be linked to Audio Frequency Induction Loop Systems (AFILS) to allow the teacher's voice to be transmitted via Induction Loop to be received via hearing aids (switched to the 'T' position) worn by a number of the school's pupils.