Harford Manor School in Norwich, which comes under the Norfolk LEA, is a special needs school with nearly seventy pupils, spanning an age range from three to nineteen years. All of them have severe learning difficulties and many have autistic disorders.

The physical environment for such pupils is extremely important and they need to have a feeling of spaciousness combined with security. The school occupies an open site, but the buildings themselves (a single storey and two additional prefabricated classrooms) have become overcrowded.

Harford Manor strives for a high level both in its achievements and facilities and to create more teaching space the decision was made to construct a new single-storey building to house the post - 16 Autistic Teaching and Resource base.

There was a need for a robust structure and the fittings and finishings had to meet specialist requirements. At the same time it had to be relocatable. The floor construction is concrete, to which the insulated cedar and plywood boarded exterior frame structure, is bolted (to allow for possible relocation). The choice of flooring insulation was a major consideration in the design of the building as undue temperature fluctuations were not acceptable.

The Architects were NPS Architectural Services for Norfolk County Council Director of Education.

A STYROFOAM™ solution, namely FLOORMATE 200-X boards, blue rigid extruded polystyrene board from Dow Construction Products was selected as being ideal in meeting both the floor loads and thermal performance requirements. The new building, officially opened on the 26th October by Charles Clark, MP for South Norwich, houses a large classroom, a quiet room, office, storeroom, teaching kitchen, dinning area and full toilet and shower facilities.