Aircraft noise and children: learning, focus and schools

Most of what is known comes from a handful of large studies of schools near Heathrow, Amsterdam Schiphol, Madrid, Munich and Frankfurt. They point the same way: the louder the aircraft noise at school, the more slowly children learn to read. The effect is modest, it seems to be reversible, and insulating schools appears to help.

What the research found

The largest study, RANCH, tested 2,844 children aged 9 and 10 at 89 schools around Heathrow, Schiphol and Madrid Barajas between 2001 and 2003. The more aircraft noise a school was exposed to, the worse its pupils did on tests of reading comprehension and recognition memory. The link held after allowing for the mother's education, the family's social position, long-standing illness and how well each classroom was insulated. Road traffic noise showed no such link with reading, and the results were similar in all three countries.

In plain terms, each 5 dB more aircraft noise at school went with a reading delay of about 2 months in the UK and about 1 month in the Netherlands. Reading began to fall below average at around 55 dB, averaged over the 16-hour day, but the relationship was a straight line: there was no level below which the effect stopped, so any reduction in noise should help.

The Munich airport move

The strongest evidence comes from Munich, where the old airport closed and a new one opened in a different area. Researchers followed 326 children, aged about 10 on average, some near each airport and some in matched quiet areas, and tested them once before the switch and twice after. Near the new airport, reading and long-term memory got worse once the planes arrived. Near the old one, both improved after the planes left, and short-term memory improved too.

Because the same children were followed through the change, this study is much harder to explain away than a one-off comparison of noisy and quiet schools. It suggests that the noise itself causes the effect, that it builds up over a year or two, and that it fades when the noise stops. The children newly exposed to aircraft noise also reported a lower quality of life 18 months after the new airport opened, and gave up sooner on puzzles used to measure motivation.

Frankfurt: the NORAH study

The German NORAH study tested 1,243 children in their second year of primary school, at 29 schools around Frankfurt. Aircraft noise at these schools was below 60 dB, lower than in the earlier studies, and the link still showed: 10 dB more meant reading about 1 month behind, 20 dB about 2 months. Children in the noisier areas also rated their quality of life a little lower, and their teachers reported that aircraft noise badly disrupted lessons, which may explain part of the effect.

Later work

• Heathrow, six years on. 461 of the UK RANCH children were tested again at 15 and 16. Those whose primary schools had been noisier were more annoyed by noise, and their reading scores were lower, though the difference was small enough to be chance.
• The United States. A study of about 6,000 schools near 46 US airports between 2000 and 2009 linked aircraft noise with lower maths and reading test scores. In 119 of those schools, the link disappeared once the school had been sound-insulated.
• A 2021 review of the newer studies, published in Environment International, again rated the evidence for a link between aircraft noise and children's reading and language as moderate.

Focus and attention: little sign of an effect

Parents often worry most about concentration, and here the research is more reassuring. RANCH found no effect of aircraft noise on sustained attention, on the children's own view of their health or on their overall mental health. The WHO's 2018 review found no substantial effect on attention or on working memory, with studies consistently pointing the same way, and the 2021 review rated the evidence against an effect on executive function, skills such as planning and working memory, as moderate.

A few studies found slightly more hyperactivity symptoms at the noisiest schools. The West London Schools Study of 451 children aged 8 to 11 found more at schools above 63 dB than at those below 57 dB, and RANCH saw something similar. An international expert panel writing for ICAO judged these differences very small and probably not clinically meaningful.

Why would noise slow reading but leave attention alone? Researchers point to several routes: lessons stopped while a plane passes, words missed, frustrated teachers and pupils, raised arousal, and poor sleep at home. In RANCH, aircraft noise at night at the child's home was also linked to poorer reading, but it added nothing once the daytime noise at school was taken into account. Noise at home and at school are often closely linked, since children tend to go to school near where they live.

How strong is the evidence?

The WHO's Environmental Noise Guidelines for Europe (2018) rate the evidence for a link between aircraft noise and children's reading as moderate. That is one step below the top grade: the link is probably real, but better studies could change its estimated size. The review behind it looked at 14 studies, of which 10 found a significant link or at least a trend. Only 4 followed children over time or looked at a change in noise, and the WHO marked the grade down because the results were not fully consistent. It also rated the evidence moderate for poorer standardised test scores and for poorer long-term memory, and summarised the effect as a reading delay of one to two months for every 5 dB.

Keep the size in proportion. These are averages over thousands of children. A delay of a month or two shows up across a school, but it does not mean that a particular child at a noisy school will fall behind.

How schools near airports are protected

Standards for classrooms. The WHO's older community noise guidelines suggest that background noise in a classroom should not exceed 35 dB during lessons, and 55 dB in the playground at break. In England, the building standard for schools (BB93) sets the same 35 dB limit for new classrooms, averaged over 30 minutes, and 40 dB for refurbished ones. It sets a separate limit of 60 dB for the peaks of regular events such as passing aircraft. In summer, when windows are opened to stop classrooms overheating, naturally ventilated rooms may reach 55 dB for the hottest 200 hours of the year. The open window is the weak point, which is why school insulation now comes with ventilation and cooling.

Heathrow's Quieter Schools Programme offers schools and community buildings in its eligible areas better insulation and ventilation: screening on windows to get the most from acoustic glazing, air conditioning and mechanical ventilation. A surveyor visits each school and draws up a plan, the work can be funded up to 100% by Heathrow, and schools helped under earlier schemes are included. The aim is that classrooms no longer need their windows open. Other airports run their own schemes; see airport noise insulation schemes.

In the United States, the FAA's 2022 guidance lets airports use federal funds to insulate schools inside the noise contours where schools are normally considered incompatible, if classrooms measure 45 dB or more averaged over the school day with the windows shut. The work aims to bring them below 45 dB and cut noise by at least 5 dB. The guidance also asks for single loud flights to be measured, because they disrupt teaching even when the average looks acceptable.

What parents can check

Whether you are choosing a school or a home near one, these are the questions that matter:

• Where the school sits. Is it on or near the extended line of a runway, or under a take-off route? Replay a few school days on our free flight map, in each runway direction, and count the planes during school hours.
• What the school has done. Ask whether it has had insulation or ventilation from the airport, whether classrooms need their windows open in warm weather, how often lessons pause for planes, and where children play and do PE.
• Nights at home. Children are thought to be among the groups most at risk of having their sleep disturbed by noise. Check how many flights pass between 23:00 and 07:00 and when the first arrivals come; aircraft noise and sleep covers what the research says.
• Changes ahead. A new runway or flight path can bring planes over a school that is quiet today. Near Heathrow, for example, check where the third runway plans would put the new flight paths.

A Flight Noise report covers one address, so you can check the school as well as the home: how many loud planes pass on an average day and night, on the worst days as well as the quiet ones, and how low they fly. For the wider picture on health, see is living near an airport bad for your health?, and for the full set of checks before you move, how to check aircraft noise before buying a house.