Witley Jones and HTS AV were delighted to collaborate on a joint project with the Hollymount School, Worcester which included the design and installation of Teaching Walls in two of the school’s classrooms.
Teaching Walls are fast becoming a key feature in classrooms across schools of all types and sizes, as they combine both storage and technology together in one key piece of furniture, providing a great solution to classroom clutter whilst housing equipment safely and securely.
These walls also provide a focal point in the classroom for students and combine traditional whiteboard teaching alongside interactive whiteboard teaching, helping to create a more interactive and engaging environment for students.
After coming across Teaching Walls during a visit to another school, Hollymount School immediately saw the benefits they had and wanted to integrate this within their very own classrooms, which is when they enlisted the help of Witley Jones to turn their vision into a reality.
The Project
The project began with a discussion between Witley Jones and the school on the requirements for the teaching walls and on identifying the requirement for the integration of audio-visual equipment, HTS AV were brought in to collaborate on this project.
Together they shared their knowledge and best practice to ensure the walls were designed to fit the space in each classroom perfectly, whilst being sufficiently reinforced to take the weight of the screen. Space for effective and safe cable routing was also considered in the design, along with the correct placing of the power source access points.
The teaching walls were then installed by the Witley Jones team and HTS were then given the task of installing the screens into the walls, in line with both the school’s needs and Health and Safety requirements and legislation.
Here’s a comment from Matt Hooper, Project Manager at HTS AV on their involvement during the installation stage of the project: “Following the installation of the teaching walls, we began work on installing the audio-visual equipment. One key part of this installation was around the type and placement of the brackets used to hold the screens.
For projects such as teaching walls, it is vital that the brackets selected can hold the weight of the selected screen and that they are placed correctly, allowing air flow to prevent overheating and to increase the reliability of the teaching wall. We were delighted to achieve this for Hollymount School.”
Result
Both Witley Jones and HTS AV worked closely together and with the school to meet their needs and the end product was one that the school was very happy with, with Emma Pritchard, Headteacher at Hollymount commenting:
“Teaching walls are now an integral part of our modernisation programme for classrooms as they provide a multitude of benefits for both our teachers and pupils.
Witley Jones and HTS AV were able to provide the furniture and the solution to supplying the interactive whiteboard under the same installation programme. This made life much easier for us as a school.
The integration of AV and the furniture itself was seamless and we are delighted with the finished article.”
The benefits of collaboration
Following the success of this project, both Witley Jones and HTS AV have shared their thoughts on why the collaboration of the two businesses worked so well and how it was beneficial to the school:
Dave Manser, Business Development Manager at Witley Jones: “We were delighted to collaborate with HTS AV on this project with Hollymount School, bringing everything together under the same umbrella to give the school a complete solution for the project. Not only this, but the benefit of having two local businesses working on the project meant the school could rest assured that should any issues have occurred, we were both only a phone call away.”
Matt Hooper, Project Manager at HTS AV: “This project has been a great success and we are delighted with the end result. The collaboration between ourselves and Witley Jones enabled us to share our knowledge and best practice, to help create a finished product that met the school’s requirements perfectly.”