Does anybody to a standard or guidelines that indicate the space required per student in a lecture room. the students are using a small tables and chairs. The rule of thumb we use is 2m squared. Correct me if I am wrong.

Louismark: From a fire safety point of view you appear to be spot on: Table 10 of BS9999 (COP for fire safety in the design, management & use of buildings) says 2m2 per person for classrooms.

It’s a long time since I’ve had any involvement with any of this and probably there will have been changes in line with ‘reducing the regulation and bureaucracy around school premises’. But maybe ‘Building Bulletin 98: Briefing Framework for Secondary School Projects’ a revision of BB82: Area Guidelines for Schools (Secondary section)’ will provide some guidance: http://media.education.g...%20school%20projects.pdf For example, ‘Figure C.4: size of teaching spaces’ may be useful. Eg the graph suggests for a ‘standard classroom’ with 20 students between 1.9 and 2.2 M squared per student.

The use of the word 'lecture' suggests tertiary education rather than secondary. I am in tertiary education. We have a lecture theatre that can take 450 people. It's laid out like a cinema. Other teaching areas, where students are expected to move around while doing their work, allow much more space per student.

Whatever you think is the 'official' requirement don't overlook that necessity that the diversity of approaches to teaching may require, at different times, bringing students together into close groups leaving more than half a room empty with a largish huddle at one end. Consider also that teaching labs, and I suppose workrooms for non-science teaching will be managed completely differently compared to the work to be undertaken. And lastly, don't irritate the socks off academics with whatever fixed ratios of space without considering the need for examination space where there is an obvious need to move students farther apart than might normally be the case. When I supervise exams that have to be spread between a dining hall and the students union bar I get more than a bit tetchy toward those who designed the University and leave me pacing up and down the rows to the smell of stale beer!