Quick take
BB93 (Building Bulletin 93, Acoustic design of schools) sets the acoustic performance standards for school buildings in England. Approved Document E states that meeting its values is the normal way to satisfy requirement E4 of the Building Regulations. Of the things BB93 measures, reverberation time is the one acoustic panels control most directly. For new build, BB93 sets a reverberation time of 0.6 seconds or less in a primary classroom and 0.8 seconds or less in a secondary classroom, with 0.4 seconds for rooms designed for pupils with special hearing and communication needs. Every Songbird panel is Class A, so choosing between them is about where the panel goes and what it has to put up with. NOVA has used Skylark wall panels and ceiling rafts across more than 30 classrooms at a London school, Finch ceiling panels in a drama studio, and the impact-resistant Warbler in sports halls, where wall treatment has to take ball strikes.
Why school acoustics matter
A reverberant classroom makes speech harder to follow. Each word blurs into the next, so pupils catch less of what the teacher says and teachers raise their voices to compensate. Children feel this more than adults, because they are still developing the listening skills adults use to fill in gaps. The pupils who lose most are those least able to compensate: children with hearing impairment or speech, language and communication needs, pupils learning English as an additional language, and younger children.
BB93 exists so that school spaces are designed to a consistent, measurable standard rather than left to chance. If you manage a school building, you have probably met the symptoms: a hall where announcements turn to mush, a dining room that becomes a wall of noise, a classroom that “sounds wrong” and leaves everyone drained. Those are reverberation problems, and they can be treated.
What BB93 requires
BB93 is the Department for Education’s performance standard for school acoustics. Requirement E4 of the Building Regulations says each room or space in a school building should have acoustic conditions and insulation against noise appropriate to its use, and Approved Document E states that the normal way of satisfying E4 is to meet the values in Section 1 of BB93. E4 applies to new school buildings, extensions and buildings converted to school use. BB93 also sets slightly less demanding values for refurbishment, which clients often write into the project brief.
For more on how the Building Regulations deal with sound, see our acoustic standards hub.
Three of BB93’s measures matter most when you are thinking about treatment.
Indoor ambient noise level. Background noise from outside and from building services such as ventilation. Panels don’t fix this; it is mainly a matter of glazing, ventilation and the building envelope.
Reverberation time (Tmf). How long sound takes to die away in a room, averaged across the mid frequencies. This is the measure absorptive treatment controls most directly, and it is the focus of this article.
Sound insulation between spaces. How well walls, floors and doors stop sound passing between rooms. Panels inside a room do nothing for this. NOVA carries out UKAS-accredited sound insulation testing where that is the issue.
BB93 sets these reverberation times for rooms that are finished and furnished for normal use, but unoccupied:
Space | New build | Refurbishment |
Nursery playroom | 0.6 s or less | 0.8 s or less |
Primary classroom | 0.6 s or less | 0.8 s or less |
Secondary classroom | 0.8 s or less | 1.0 s or less |
Room for pupils with special hearing and communication needs | 0.4 s or less | 0.4 s or less |
Library | 1.0 s or less | 1.2 s or less |
Dining room | 1.0 s or less | 1.5 s or less |
Assembly or multi-purpose hall | 0.8 to 1.2 s | 0.8 to 1.5 s |
Sports hall | 1.5 to 2.0 s or less, depending on floor area | 2.0 s or less |
For the full detail of what BB93 requires, including ambient noise and sound insulation targets for every room type, see our complete guide to BB93.
How acoustic panels deliver BB93 reverberation targets
Reverberation time depends on the volume of the room and the total sound absorption in it: a bigger room rings for longer, and more absorption shortens the ring. You can’t easily change a classroom’s volume, so you add absorption. In a finished school room with a hard floor, plastered walls and plenty of glazing, that means acoustic panels on the walls or rafts and baffles at ceiling level.
Absorbers are graded under BS EN ISO 11654 from Class A, the most absorptive, down to Class E. Class A absorbs the most sound per square metre, which matters in schools, where display boards, windows and whiteboards already take up much of the wall.
Every Songbird panel achieves Class A absorption. So in a school, choosing between Songbird panels is not really an absorption-performance decision. The real questions are how much absorptive area each room needs, where it can go, how it looks, how it installs and, in a school, whether it will survive the environment.
How much treatment a room needs depends on its volume, its existing surfaces and the target, so it is worked out in an acoustic assessment rather than guessed. We don’t publish a “panels per classroom” figure, because two classrooms of the same floor area can need very different amounts depending on ceiling height, glazing and floor finish.
Placement matters too. Ceiling treatment is efficient and out of harm’s way, and in halls and sports halls, rafts and baffles are often the only practical way to get enough absorption into a large volume. In classrooms, our advice is to spread absorption across the ceiling and walls, which tends to control reflections more evenly. Explore the Songbird range.
SEND and inclusive design: why the targets tighten
BB93 sets a tighter reverberation target, 0.4 seconds, for rooms designed specifically for pupils with special hearing and communication needs. It also limits the reverberation time in each octave band from 125 Hz to 4 kHz, so a room can’t hit the average while ringing badly at one frequency.
Pupils who rely on hearing aids, cochlear implants or lip-reading, and those with auditory processing or attention differences, need speech to stand out clearly from everything else in the room, and reverberation smears exactly that signal. A room built to the 0.4 second standard needs considerably more absorptive area than a mainstream classroom of the same size. In our experience, other SEND classrooms and resource bases often benefit from going beyond the mainstream target too, because a calmer room helps many pupils regulate and concentrate. These rooms can also see more contact with wall surfaces, so robustness matters as well as absorption.
Match the panel to the impact risk
Acoustic performance is only half of the specification question in a school. The other half is whether the panel survives where it is fixed. In our experience, this is often underestimated at design stage.
Sports halls are the clearest case. Balls hit the walls all day, and a standard soft panel within reach will dent, tear or come off its fixings. A damaged panel isn’t just unsightly. Depending on the damage it may absorb less, and it leaves the school with a replacement cost it didn’t plan for.
Elsewhere the risk is lower but not zero: bags in corridors, chairs and trolleys in dining halls, more contact at low level in primary and SEND classrooms. Ceiling rafts and upper walls are out of reach almost everywhere. Our advice is to match the panel to the risk at each location rather than putting the toughest product everywhere.
Songbird panels in schools: three projects
All three products below have the same Class A absorption; what differs is the room and what the panels have to withstand. In each project, our consultants measured the room first and used the results to set the amount and layout of treatment.
Skylark in classrooms: Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, London
The Lycée in South Kensington had more than 30 classrooms with high ceilings and reflective finishes. Sound built up during lessons, speech was hard to follow, and the school needed a fix that wouldn’t spoil the rooms or disrupt teaching.
We carried out on-site reverberation testing and assessed each teaching space, then designed a layout of Skylark wall panels and suspended ceiling rafts for every room. The white rafts sit between the existing lights and the blue wall panels sit within the teaching space, so the treatment reads as part of the room. Installation was phased around the working school.
Read the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle case study.
Finch on a drama studio ceiling: Kidderminster
A finished school drama studio had harsh, uncomfortable acoustics, and teachers were particularly sensitive to the noise. The walls and floor were needed for teaching and performance, so treatment had to go entirely on the ceiling.
After on-site testing, we calculated the absorption needed and arranged black Finch panels across the ceiling, working around the existing strip lights and projector. The black finish matches the studio’s dark walls and stage area and leaves the performance floor clear.
Read the Kidderminster drama studio case study.
Warbler in sports halls: Galliford Try
Sports halls are where Warbler belongs. Wall treatment in a sports hall is within reach of balls and PE equipment, and Warbler is Songbird’s impact-resistant panel, made for exactly that. It has the same Class A absorption as the rest of the range.
You don’t choose it for better absorption; you choose it because it keeps that absorption working in a room where a softer panel would be damaged. We supplied Warbler for sports halls delivered with Galliford Try.
Read the Galliford Try sports halls case study.
Choosing between them
As a starting point from these projects: Skylark for classroom walls and ceiling rafts, Finch where a ceiling-only scheme or a particular finish suits the room, and Warbler where panels on the walls will be hit. Colour and layout are part of the specification too, especially in primary and SEND settings, so decide them alongside the acoustic design. Wall linings in corridors and escape routes also have reaction-to-fire requirements under Approved Document B, so check each panel’s fire classification against its location.
Specifying acoustic treatment for a school? Tell us about your rooms and our consultants will recommend the right Songbird panels, quantities and layout for each one.
Specifying treatment for a whole school: a room-by-room guide
Mainstream classrooms. Moderate reverberation control, using wall panels, ceiling rafts or both. Skylark wall panels and rafts were the solution across the Lycée’s classrooms. In primary classrooms, think about how much contact low-level wall panels will get. See our classroom acoustics page.
SEND classrooms and resource bases. Tighter targets where the room is designed for hearing impairment, more absorptive area, and a careful look at how robust the wall treatment needs to be given how the room is used.
Sports and PE halls. A large volume with very hard surfaces, which usually makes these the worst reverberation problem in a school. Most of the absorption goes in at ceiling or roof level as rafts or baffles, with wall treatment below. Wall panels within reach of a ball should be impact-resistant, which is where Warbler comes in. See our sports hall acoustics page.
Dining halls and refectories. High occupancy noise and frequent cleaning. Most treatment can go on the ceiling; keep low-level wall panels to areas away from chairs and trolleys, or specify them for the contact they’ll get.
Corridors and circulation. High traffic and constant contact. BB93 also expects absorption in corridors, entrance halls and stairwells, calculated using the methods in Approved Document E. The ceiling is usually the best place for it, out of reach of bags and bodies.
Drama studios. Often a ceiling-only job, because walls and floor are needed for performance, as at Kidderminster, where black Finch panels went across the ceiling.
Music rooms. Music spaces have their own acoustic needs, which go beyond controlling reverberation, and they need dedicated design rather than a standard treatment package.
Libraries and quiet study. Reverberation control for a calm environment, with lower impact risk, so standard panels usually suit. See our library acoustics page.
Getting the amount and placement of treatment right across a whole school is a design calculation, not a guess. Our acoustic consultants can assess your spaces against BB93 and specify the treatment each room needs.
Why choose NOVA Acoustics
Meeting BB93 in a school means knowing what the standard asks of each space, then specifying treatment that delivers it and survives the environment. NOVA Acoustics does both: we assess school spaces against BB93 as acoustic consultants, and we design and supply the Songbird panels that treat them.
Consultancy grounded in the standard. Our consultants assess and design school spaces against BB93, calculating the absorption each room needs rather than applying a generic panel count. Education is one of NOVA’s core sectors; see our education acoustic consultancy.
The Songbird range. Class A panels including Skylark, Finch and the impact-resistant Warbler, already used in school classrooms, drama studios and sports halls. One conversation covers both the acoustic design and the product.
Support for specifiers, from one room to a whole school. We provide the acoustic rationale, product data and treatment layouts behind a BB93 design, whether the job is one over-reverberant hall or a full new-build programme.
UKAS-accredited testing. NOVA is a UKAS-accredited testing laboratory (No. 8568) for sound insulation testing, so the same team can test the sound insulation side of BB93 too.
National coverage. Offices in Leeds, Manchester, London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, Cambridge, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, and Hull mean we can support education projects across England.
Tell us about your school project and we will assess your spaces against BB93 and specify the right treatment for each one.
Frequently asked questions
Are acoustic panels a legal requirement in schools?
Not as such. Requirement E4 of the Building Regulations requires suitable acoustic conditions in school buildings, and Approved Document E states that meeting BB93’s values is the normal way to satisfy it. Panels aren’t named, but they are usually the way a room meets BB93’s reverberation targets. A room meets BB93, not a product, so compliance depends on the whole design.
What reverberation time does BB93 require in a classroom?
For new build, 0.6 seconds or less in a primary classroom and 0.8 seconds or less in a secondary classroom. For refurbishment, 0.8 and 1.0 seconds. Rooms designed for pupils with special hearing and communication needs have a tighter limit of 0.4 seconds. The values apply to rooms that are finished and furnished but unoccupied.
How many acoustic panels does a classroom need?
There is no fixed number. The absorptive area needed depends on the room’s volume, its existing surfaces and the target reverberation time, so it is calculated as part of an acoustic assessment. A room with a hard floor, plastered walls and a lot of glazing needs more treatment than one with softer finishes.
Do acoustic panels help pupils with hearing impairment or SEND?
Yes. Less reverberation means clearer speech, which pupils using hearing aids, cochlear implants or lip-reading depend on. That is why BB93 sets a tighter target for rooms designed for pupils with special hearing and communication needs.
Which Songbird panels are used in schools?
It depends on the room. NOVA has used Skylark wall panels and ceiling rafts in classrooms, Finch ceiling panels in a drama studio, and the impact-resistant Warbler in sports halls. All three have the same Class A absorption, so the choice comes down to where the panels go and what they need to withstand.
Is Warbler better at absorbing sound than other Songbird panels?
No, and it isn’t meant to be. Warbler has the same Class A absorption as the rest of the range. Its advantage is durability: it keeps that absorption working on sports hall walls, where a softer panel would be damaged by ball strikes.
Can existing school rooms be treated, or only new builds?
Both. Retrofitting treatment into existing rooms is one of the most common school acoustics jobs. The Lycée’s classrooms and the Kidderminster drama studio were both finished, working spaces when we treated them. An assessment works out how much treatment each room needs.
Can NOVA assess our school and supply the panels?
Yes. NOVA provides acoustic consultancy against BB93 and designs and supplies the Songbird panel range, so one team can handle both the design and the treatment.
Summary
BB93 sets the acoustic performance standards for school buildings in England, and meeting it is the normal way to satisfy requirement E4 of the Building Regulations. Reverberation time is the BB93 measure acoustic panels control most directly: 0.6 seconds or less in a new primary classroom, 0.8 seconds in a new secondary classroom, and 0.4 seconds in rooms designed for pupils with special hearing and communication needs.
Because every Songbird panel is Class A, specifying for a school is mostly about how much treatment each room needs, where it goes and what it has to withstand. In our projects, that has meant Skylark in classrooms, Finch on a drama studio ceiling and impact-resistant Warbler in sports halls.
NOVA Acoustics covers both sides: we assess spaces against BB93 as acoustic consultants and supply the Songbird range that treats them.
Whether you are designing a new school, refurbishing classrooms or fixing a single over-reverberant hall, NOVA Acoustics can assess it against BB93 and specify the right Songbird panels for each space.
Enquire about acoustic treatment for your school | Explore the Songbird acoustic panel range
Sources
Department for Education. Acoustic design of schools: performance standards (Building Bulletin 93), February 2015, GOV.UK. Reverberation values from Table 6; the E4 statement from Section 1.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Resistance to sound: Approved Document E, GOV.UK. Requirement E4 and Section 7 (absorption in common internal parts).
The Building Regulations 2010, Schedule 1, Part E, legislation.gov.uk.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Fire safety: Approved Document B, GOV.UK. Reaction-to-fire performance of wall linings.
BSI. BS EN ISO 11654:1997 Acoustics. Sound absorbers for use in buildings. Rating of sound absorption.
Institute of Acoustics and Association of Noise Consultants. Acoustics of Schools: a design guide (2015).
