Using AV to drive effective learning

Education

Published: September 15, 2026

Creating a space to thrive; learning enhanced by simple and effective AV

The Cornerstone Academy Trust is world-renowned for its pioneering use of technology to aid and enhance learning. The Trust has become a Digital Academy and has a partnership with Microsoft to allow 1-1 devices for pupils from Year 1 right through to Year 6.

With such a focus on technology for teaching, AV is crucial for allowing teachers and staff to deliver teaching and for students to collaborate together. Having worked with the Trust for over 20 years, we have refined what makes a flexible, usable system that works for staff and students, to create a modern classroom environment where pen and paper are still important, but videos, online tools and collaboration are central to the work pupils are completing.

Embracing AV technology in the classroom helps staff deliver a wider variety of lessons than would be possible without it.

The main challenge when designing a classroom for modern classroom use is the flexibility it needs to offer. When it is used all day for teaching, it also needs to be reliable so that disruption to learning is minimised. Of course, with a system running 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, there are going to be occasional hiccups, but selecting high-quality equipment that delivers performance day after day is critical.

It was important to the Trust and the team at API that although AV was to be a big part of the classroom setup, it needed to supplement the classroom environment without causing a distraction. This meant that the products we selected had to tick both the box for performance requirements and not be obtrusive once installed in the room.

Because of our long-standing relationship with the Trust, we have a classroom model we can adapt to the size of the classroom. In Year 6 classrooms, children are taught together in classes of up to 60, so the equipment in these spaces needs to be upgraded to support the larger class size. These rooms also usually have a higher level of equipment than other spaces, with a Teams camera system allowing teachers across the Year 6 age group in different schools to run lessons together, and multiple smaller screens which allow pupils to present during small group work.

A crucial part of any classroom system is the Soundfield system that we install. These are much more prevalent in the United States, where class sizes are generally larger, but have been deployed across Cornerstone Academy Trust classrooms because of the benefit to teachers. The systems consist of a neck-worn microphone which is fed to speakers in the room, allowing staff to communicate with larger groups of pupils without the need to raise their voice to be heard.

Because of the amount of visual content that teachers use as aids to learning, all classrooms are fitted with a full-range sound system, complete with a subwoofer, so that videos and films are impactful and can be clearly heard.

To make control of the room as simple as possible, each classroom has an iPad which is running a customised app, allowing teachers to quickly select the source, screen power and control the volume of the sound system.

Connecting and engaging pupils through the AV equipment in the room is key to teaching across the Trust.