Redmoor Academy, Coalville: Acoustic Panelling and Suspended Ceilings

Redmoor Academy is a secondary school in Coalville, Leicestershire, serving students across a range of teaching, sports and dining environments. Eastledge delivered acoustic wall panelling across the high-traffic communal areas and suspended ceilings throughout, working in phases to keep disruption clear of teaching time and handing back each zone clean ahead of the next school day.

The brief

Secondary school interiors generate sustained noise levels in communal spaces. Dining halls and sports facilities operate at high occupancy for extended periods, and hard wall and ceiling surfaces that are practical for cleaning and durability produce reverberation that accumulates across the school day. The brief at Redmoor covered two parallel scopes: acoustic wall panelling in the areas with the highest reverberation exposure, and renewed suspended ceilings across classrooms, corridors and support spaces.

Both scopes needed to be delivered without closing the school. Teaching continues across most of the building while refurbishment work is under way, which means access sequencing, dust control and a programme that respects the school's timetable are not optional extras: they are the conditions of the contract.

Acoustic wall panelling

Fabric-faced acoustic panels were installed across the key communal spaces, including dining and sports areas where reverberation time is highest under normal occupancy. Acoustic panels work by absorbing sound energy on contact rather than reflecting it back into the space: broad-spectrum absorption distributed across the wall plane reduces reverberation time and attenuates the build-up of background noise as occupancy rises.

Panel fixing to existing wall substrates requires the wall to be assessed for bearing capacity and surface condition ahead of installation. Perimeter conditions, penetrations for power and data, and junction details at door frames and column faces are resolved before installation begins.

Suspended ceilings

Mineral fibre suspended ceilings were installed across teaching rooms, corridors and support spaces. A standard exposed T-bar grid with 600x600 mm mineral fibre tile provides a clean, maintainable ceiling finish that integrates with luminaires, ventilation terminals and fire detection at the individual tile level. In a school environment where ceiling access for services maintenance is a practical requirement, a standard grid tile system is the baseline specification.

How we worked

The programme was phased around the school's term dates and operational calendar. The majority of installation work was completed during school holiday periods, with any works that ran into term time confined to zones isolated from teaching activity, hoarded against dust, and handed back clean before the school opened each morning.

Daily working practice included dust and noise containment appropriate to a school environment, site tidying at the end of each working day, and coordination with the school's site management team on access, locking and compound management.

Outcome

The completed installation delivers renewed ceiling finishes and acoustic wall treatment across the key areas of the school. The acoustic panelling in the communal spaces reduces the reverberation load that accumulates during peak occupancy periods. The suspended ceiling across teaching and circulation areas provides a clean, serviceable finish integrated with the existing services layout.

Further education and secondary school projects are a regular part of Eastledge's portfolio. For more on our education sector work, visit the education sector page. For more on acoustic panelling, visit the acoustic panelling service page.