National Design Standards for School Hall Floors

The UK Government’s  Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) sets design standards for school refurbishments and new-build in England and Wales. Part of their standard relates to floors used in sports halls, studios, dining and assembly halls and the like.
 
In the past they allowed both area elastic floors, eg our sports systems, and point elastic finishes such as foam backed vinyl to screed (Category P3). For the current phase (Priority Schools Building Programme 2) only area elastic category A3 or A4 floor systems are permitted. This appears to be because of concerns about the suitability of foam backed vinyl glued to screed for activity floors.
 
Junckers provides multi purpose floor systems to both A3 and A4 performance levels in both solid hardwood and vinyl. With the exceptional life span and environmental credentials of solid hardwood we are able to offer a wide range of systems for these projects, as well as other similar schemes.
 
In brief the ESFA’s design standards for school hall floors can be summarised as follows.
 
ALL FLOORS MUST BE CATEGORY A3 OR A4 UNDER EN 14904
MULTI PURPOSE SPORTS HALLS
ACTIVITY STUDIOS
DANCE STUDIOS
DRAMA STUDIOS
FITNESS SUITES
MULTI PURPOSE DINING HALLS in primary schools, where the hall is used for “performance and PE”                                   
 
Any hall or performance suite in a Secondary School with more than 900 students must have retractable seating. A Junckers hardwood floor system will bear the loads from the seating system whilst retaining its category A3 or A4 “sprung” performance.
 
Whilst ESFA standards are specifically for the current round of school building, the needs of one school will be broadly the same as another in terms of floor performance and design. Therefore we suggest the above should be applied to any hall floor replacements that are funded by other education funding streams.
 
You can see a related article in the Contract Flooring Journal in March 2019
 
For further information including a summary of how Junckers floors match the detailed ESFA design criteria, email us at ria@junckers.com