Toddletown Nursey

Introduction

With the children being at the heart of everything being achieved, Toddletown Nursery provides an environment which feels like home and where children are free to explore and lead their own play, by using resources that are authentic and spark children’s natural curiosity, rather than creating a world full of plastic toys. The open-ended resources help children with their imagination, self-confidence, and problem-solving skills and with a focus on helping children with their emotional wellbeing and regulation.

The client, being a leading childcare provider in the UK, operating with a commitment of creating a nurturing environment for early childhood development, where a part of this dedication is to enhance the learning experience, through the installation of a sophisticated lighting solution which will optimise illumination within classrooms, and to this end, Ansell Lighting was selected as the preferred partner for its reputation in delivering innovative and reliable lighting solutions.

Products installed

The scope for the project was based around the deployment of the Ansell Oxford CCT Surface Linear Multi Wattage OCTO Smart Control fitting in both standard and maintained emergency variants, alongside the installation of an advanced lighting control system to enhance illumination within the classroom spaces, so as to provide a fully versatile qualitative lighting option.

The Oxford is a modern fully enclosed surface luminaire, ideally suited for educational buildings, having a constructed steel body with polycarbonate diffuser and plastic end caps, providing a curved low-profile appearance.

Available in three different lengths, 4ft, 5ft and 6ft, this luminaire offers the benefit of being power selectable, with  a choice of high and low outputs within one single luminaire, alongside the opportunity of being colour (CCT) selectable, between 3000K, 4000K and 5000K, allowing this single luminaire optimum suitability in the different spaces within the school.

Power by a Philips LED Driver, this fitting is made available in switchable and numerous analogue and digital dimmable options, as well as through OCTO Smart Control. Additionally for spaces which require emergency lighting, the Oxford is also offered in standard, Self-Test, and DALI emergency variants.

With a beam angle of 110°, and a CRI of 80, alongside an efficacy of 140Lm/Watt, and an operating lifetime of L70 to 50,000 hours, makes this fitting the optimum specification solution required for educational and other spaces within the school environment.

OCTO

Before this new installation, Toddletown Nursery did not have a lighting control system in place, and the absence of such hindered its ability to customise lighting levels in the classrooms to meet the various specific needs, thereby impacting on the environment and the overall learning experience for the children.

The inclusion of the OCTO Smart Control system was driven by the recommendations of the design team involved in the project and rectified the lack of lighting control by proposing this cutting-edge lighting control system.

The Oxford luminaires with their curved diffusers fitted well into the existing infrastructure and provided a superb user-friendly interface for the nursery staff to easily manage allowing the adjustment of the levels of illumination to be carried out according to the specific needs of each task being carried out within the classroom.

Having carried out the installation process, the achieved solution provided much benefit to the nursery, in that the lighting offered a both customisation and flexibility for the nursery staff to have the ability to achieve different lighting levels based on different activities, thereby creating that optimal learning environment.

The system ease of use allowed an intuitive interface which made it easy for teachers to control lighting without the need for extensive training.

The specification of this solution saved the contractor from running additional cables that would have been necessary for an alternative switch dimming system, provided the client with both a reduced installation cost as well as less interruption time during the process.

Concluding

The lighting challenges Toddletown Nursery were successfully addressed, by implementing a comprehensive and efficient lighting alongside the lighting control solution, which enhanced the learning environment, through the ability to dim the lighting to select the optimum illumination levels, had a positive impact on the ambiance of the classrooms, thereby contributing to a more conducive learning atmosphere.