Lighting design for schools is always a tricky task. Particularly in schools that cater for children with special needs, the ultimate goal of those with lighting jobs is to help create an educational environment where these young and vulnerable minds can feel comfortable. Only when the children feel completely safe and relaxed can they easily accept the best physical, emotional and intellectual stimulation offered by their teachers and carers.

One example is the Pond Meadow Special Educational Needs School, which shares the same site with the Christ?s College Secondary School in Guildford, Surrey. Designed to accommodate more than 70 students from nursery level up to age 19, the Pond Meadow School is divided into three zones surrounding a central courtyard -- the lower school, the senior school, and the middle section that houses a shared gymnasium, hydrotherapy poll and dining hall. Depending on the specific needs of the students, those with lighting jobs have taken particular care to provide practical and unique lighting fixtures and fittings.

For instance, autistic children are known to obsess about the specifics of their surroundings. For them, lighting switches have been installed in cupboards or concealed in painted, wall-mounted fibreboard units. In the case of some of the other children, who are severely disabled and have to lie on mats on the floor during classes, regular downlights have been considerably avoided so that the children will not become uncomfortable and distracted by the light. Instead, uplighters are used so that the light can reflect off the ceiling.

There is also a lot of natural lighting in the Pond Meadow School, which is a single-storey building. Those with lighting jobs have installed sophisticated control systems so that artificial lighting automatically dims down in accordance with daylight levels. In order to ensure that all lighting fixtures and fittings are installed and operated appropriately, an important aspect of the lighting jobs conducted in this project has been to communicate with the mechanical and electrical contractors thoroughly early in the design stage. This helps all parties involved understand and further produce suitable solutions to satisfy the school?s special requirements.