Bishop Wilson Primary School: PA & Soundfield

Opening its doors for the first time in September 2013, The Bishop Wilson Primary School features a fully integrated public address system and Soundfield Voice Classroom Voice Reinforcement Systems.

The Client:

Opening its doors for the first time in September 2013, The Bishop Wilson CofE Primary School is a £10 million new school development which forms the heart of a new village in Chelmsley Wood, Solihull.

This brand new two-form entry school and nursery has been developed not only to provide an education for the area’s 3 to 11 year olds, but also incorporates the village’s relocated church, adult learning centre, community area and health facility. The result is an outstanding educational and community development which provides a safe, secure and inspiring environment which encourages both pupils and the wider community to use and interact with the school.

System Requirements:

Accommodating this diverse, multi-use concept requires significant flexibility of services and utilities – including the integrated audio system installed throughout the building. UK communications integrators, Babble were brought in to ensure a high quality, reliable, flexible and user-friendly system was put in place…

Babble worked in close partnership with it’s AV distributor to provide a full turn-key design-to-delivery service for all audio systems throughout the school, church and community areas.

The system from the ‘ground-up’; with ongoing consultations and specifying from plan drawings prior to the one-year project build, supplying all product direct to site and designing and building the complete Bell Timing / PA / Music Distribution audio rack and church radio microphone rack. Both racks were delivered direct to site ready for ‘plug-and-play’ installation.

The Solution:

The main audio rack – which provides bell-timing, public address and background music distribution throughout the entire complex – features at the heart of it the InterM PX8000 Audio Matrix which provides 8 In – 8 Out signal distribution and control flexibility to each of the building’s individual zones. Additional remote control per zone is also provided using the PX8000’s RM-8000 and LM-8000 wall plate and desk mic. input/control devices.

Also specified and supplied was a number of Soundfield Voice Reinforcement Systems for permanent installation in Bishop Wilson School’s classrooms. Soundfield classroom voice reinforcement systems are low-level audio systems featuring an infrared wireless microphone worn by the teacher to discreetly raise their voice for clear, consistent voice coverage throughout the entire classroom space.

The increased use of Soundfield as a teaching aid in the classroom has huge benefits to pupils with hearing difficulties, but is also proven to benefit mainstream students (whose concentration and understanding is significantly improved) and teachers who no longer have to raise their voices in noisy / lively teaching environments, therefore reducing problems of voice strain and stress.