School Classroom: Sink Areas
School classroom sink areas are often very demanding, high-use areas where robust materials are essential to ensure a long service life.
Designing a classroom sink area requires careful attention to detail to ensure safety for students and teachers. At Benchmark Products, we make school furniture ourselves, so we can create unique and practical solutions to meet your needs.
We work closely with our clients, architects, interior designers and building contractors to ensure a smooth, efficient process where the end result is exactly what was envisioned at the outset of the project, ensuring the school year isn’t affected.
What Is The Purpose Of A Classroom Sink Area?
By including a sink area in your classroom, rather than relying on the sinks in the washrooms, students can learn to become more independent when it comes to personal hygiene and responsible by washing up equipment after use.
Sink areas are important in primary classrooms, school play areas, and high school art classrooms. They allow students to wash their hands and equipment easily after activities or messy art lessons. This helps children become independent and build relationships, which is important for young learners.
What Are The Design Factors To Consider For Classroom Sink Areas?
The design of your classroom can have a great impact on your students. A well-designed classroom can boost learning progress by 16%. Therefore, it is crucial to have effective strategies for managing the classroom. This means it is essential to consider all the factors during the planning and design stage.
First and foremost, consider the amount of space available. If you have a limited amount of space, we will create a bespoke furniture solution ensuring the space is maximised and utilised as efficiently as possible for the learning environment.
Having a well defined and easily identifiable area will help early years students to understand what type of activity will be taking place there and the behaviours expected of them. In a classroom sink area, behavioural expectations should include responsibility, organisation and tidiness. A well-designed classroom will have clear boundaries such as the arrangement of furniture, colours and signs to define an area.
Choosing colours that reflect and represent your school can instill a sense of pride amongst both students and employees, leading to an increase in motivation throughout the school. Younger children, such as infant school students, tend to be drawn more to the primary colours. Blues, reds and yellows create a stimulating environment for younger pupils that can help to boost productivity. However, care should be taken, as overuse of these colours can also be counterproductive, particularly if the right balance isn’t achieved.
A great example of using the right amount of vibrant colours in a primary classroom is the sink area we designed and manufactured for St Helen’s Catholic Primary School. The neutral colour of the walls allowed the design of the sink area to be bolder without risking overstimulation. Our visualiser tool can help you to find the ideal colour scheme for your school furniture.
.Deciding on the type of sink to be installed is also very important. Stainless steel sinks are usually the most popular choice as they are robust, easy to clean and hygienic.
Belfast sinks are also widely used due to their larger size, making them ideal for art classrooms and wet play areas. However, more care should be taken with Belfast sinks as they are made from ceramic and can chip easily if misused. Both stainless steel sinks and Belfast sinks are available options on all of our sink area furniture.
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What Are The Functional Factors To Consider For Classroom Sink Areas?
Arguably the most important functional factor to consider for a classroom sink area is hygiene. Opting for a stainless steel sink is one way to maintain excellent hygiene in this area as it is generally unaffected by chemicals, won’t rust, is durable and long-lasting, and is unlikely to crack which will prevent bugs developing.
Storage space is also a vital addition to any classroom sink area. Maximising the storage space will ensure the area is easier to keep tidy and well organised, which is essential in a busy classroom environment. It is important to note that cleaning chemicals should not be stored in classroom cupboards, however, locks can be provided on cabinets where equipment and stationery storage is required.
All our classroom cabinets allow full integration with M&E services and include drawer and tray units. The drawer runners are all heavy-duty with soft-close mechanisms and robust 270 knuckle hinges to ensure longevity.
Work surfaces need to be a highly durable material to be able to withstand daily use whilst remaining within budget. We have different options for classroom worktops, like Trespa Toplab Base SGL, post-formed laminate, and solid surface. These options have been used successfully in busy classrooms. All these surfaces are easy to clean which further helps in maintaining hygiene levels.
We always strive to exceed our clients’ expectations by delivering projects on time. Our unique sub-frame system allows for faster installation of school classroom furniture, whilst improving the rigidity and strength of the fitted cabinetry. We also aim to reduce the amount of wastage on every project by recycling and promoting the efficient use of resources, energy and fuel to successfully achieve our sustainability statement.
If you have a project you’d like to discuss with us contact us today by giving us a call on 01953 889 603 or send us an email to enquiries@benchmarkproducts.co.uk
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This article was written by Dean Fryer, Estimator at Benchmark FF&E Solutions since 2012.
Passionate about collaboration between sub-contractors on site and a demonstrated history in assisting building contractors and architects with producing comprehensive and definitive schedules at pre-tender and pre-contract stage, Dean is an invaluable asset to Benchmark Products and contributes towards the end goal of perfect delivery every time.