ICT Suite Design at Danes Hill
Three ICT suites have been designed and refurbished at Danes Hill School in Surrey by Fusion Classroom Design. Two ICT classrooms are for ages up to 13, with a KS0 ICT suite for pre-prep 3-5 yr olds. All three ICT rooms feature rise and fall hardware enabling quick and easy conversion from ICT use to other teaching formats. The pre-prep ICT suite design uses a themed interior design to create an eye-catching and memorable multi-purpose teaching space.
ICT Classroom Design for KS2 and 3
The two larger ICT classrooms are designed for up to 23 pupils, with both rooms using bespoke ICT furniture designed by Fusion. The rise and fall desks are built into an ICT bench. Each steel sub-frame uses a gas-strut carriage enabling the screen, keyboard and mouse to travel down into the desk without any disconnection. The main CPU is housed within the steel frame, accessible via a drop-down front panel.
Sometimes described as a saw-tooth desk arrangement, the benches orientate the screen so that whole-class teaching is practical, with viewing angles to the large smartboard located within the matching teacherwall. A centre island with perimeter benches gives the school ICT suite a flow for teaching staff to move around the room. The teacherwalls in both larger classrooms incorporate large smartboards weighing over 100Kgs, including one on a rise and fall bracket to enable the board to be electrically adjusted in height.
Multi Purpose ICT Suite
As with the larger classrooms, the pre-prep ICT suite has multi-purpose desks. Designed for 11 pupils in the 3 – 5 year age range this ‘Caterpiller’ ICT bench has screens that can hide away inside the desk without any disconnection or attendance from a technician. Achieving the 600mm desk height appropriate for the youngest age range was a new challenge – to fit all the computer hardware inside the mini ICT desk, maintain correct ergonomics for the children, and fit into the room.
The design theme for the room is a meadow style using stylised wall graphics, grass print carpet, and a backlit sky ceiling. The ICT furniture includes an internal bench seat within the Caterpillar desks for children to sit in a tiered arrangement when the classroom is used in a non-hardware format.
A tree bookcase completes the design scheme, along with blinds using the sky theme. The grass pattern carpet is a great basis for the room. Not only is it in keeping with the design, it is impervious to water and very easy to clean, yet still with the warmth of a carpet.
An element of the design is a green screen backdrop for filming. A glazed sliding door was also installed during the works and this is manifested using a semi-transparent version of the meadow artwork for a subtle continuation of the design. The sliding door is electrically actuated with manual push-button controls on both sides as well as movement sensors should anyone be in the doorway. The backlit stretch ceiling adds a dimension to the room. Printed with a sky image the seamless ceiling makes the room feel larger and more spacious, and diffuses the lighting effectively. Although the vibrant, curved, ICT furniture is a focal point the ceiling is a ‘wow’ once people realize its not a regular ceiling.
Fusion carried out the design process as well as the work to create the rooms including all the fit-out in the infant ict room.
ICT Suite design
3 ICT suites have been refurbished for Danes Hill School by Fusion Classroom Design. The technically challenging ICT classroom designs included a pre-prep classroom (3yrs – 5 yrs) and two ICT rooms for year 1 – year 9 all with rise and fall hardware enabling the classrooms to be dual purpose. Rise and fall computer screens for 3-5 year olds required all the desks to be set at 600mm high, quite a challenge to incorporate screen, keyboard and CPU.
The pre-prep ICT classroom has a ‘meadow’ theme for the design, with hardware carefully integrated into the furniture including the smartboard positioned within a joinery wall. A bench seat set within the ICT bench allows children to sit around the inner curve as well as on the perimeter. The lowered bench seat gives a tiered arrangement to the classroom seating when used in a conventional classroom format.
Two ICT classrooms for the main school also have rise and fall screens and keyboards. Both the pre-prep and main school ICT rooms have a steel framed rise and fall ICT desk that is extremely durable.
Teacherwall furniture was incorporated into the two ICT rooms, one includes a rise and fall smartboard. Teacherwalls have large whiteboard doors either side of the smartboard. Cabling and sockets are routed through the cabinets to ensure both rooms are clutter and cable free.
The dual purpose classrooms convert easily. Each screen, keyboards and mouse are on a rise and fall ‘carriage’. These work on a gas strut and the whole 23 positions in each of the two ICT rooms can be converted in 2 minutes.
For more images of the finished project see our ICT Furniture section, or contact Fusion for a free ICT suite design consultation.
