To think closing schools or making them "optional" during the heatwave is putting pressure on working parents and is just a bit silly?

@MrsMurphyIWish Can all teachers with school age children take unpaid leave? I don't know the answer to the question as I'm out of teaching now (did my time - 22 years in primary teaching). I have three kids and never once took time off to care for them - I knew it would have been frowned upon. Fortunately I had local parents that could help out.

Well that’s kind of my point I guess. School closures will have wider implications. A teacher may have to take emergency parental leave because their child’s school has closed, having a knock on effect on their own class.
So society as a whole, parents and non parents, will need to accept that in times like this services will be reduced. There was a thread earlier complaining that a Tesco delivery was cancelled this morning due to the heat. Maybe they’re short staffed because some of their drivers were told late last night that their child’s school won’t be open today?

Why are you opening windows when the temperature is warmer outside than in and why are the kids not allowed outside?

ours all are. It’s fairly breezy, not bad outside as long as you stick to the shade. Safer than indoors surely.

Don't be so melodramatic. Life isn't black and white

DC’s school is closing tomorrow at 1pm but found out we’re staying open. DS is in Year 7 but has ASD so he can’t stay home alone for long periods. I’m taking unpaid leave for the afternoon.

If I was still a working parent my children would be going into school. But if I was a sahm they’d still be going in. I wouldn’t have cared if their friends were off or not. Hot weather isn’t a reason to stay off school.

You don't know what I do for a living

I would have thought most would be relieved.

Agreed. Our school is a new build that’s been made with heavily insulated walls and a roof. This coupled with the body heat from 30 kids in a class, makes it very warm to begin with. This is great in winter but awful in the summer. It’s too hot this week and they’ve made the sensible decision to close Wednesday and Thursday. They have the children’s best interests at heart.

We asked favours of friends to take our DC’s home with them. We returned the favour and took a day off during the school holidays and offered to take their DC’s out for the day

Alternatively you or your DH will have to take their DC’s day off.

You start accruing statutory paid holiday fr your first day of employment . There is no waiting period before holiday entitlement begins.

In our primary schools some classes are not too bad and others are obscenely hot and would be dangerous for kids and staff

there are arrangements to be made for the children in those classes- eg going to the shady woods. However there is only so much moving around you can do.

The only people who can have a real opinion on this are people who are working in schools. I am a teacher, and today has been awful. We cannot safeguard 30 kids in a classroom from being dehydrated etc, in a classroom where the window opens up an inch, some kids refuse to drink water, some turned up in long sleeves and trousers and refused to get changed, they are not allowed outside so are stuck in one room all day, no fans. Etc etc…. It was horrific. I have a huge headache this evening from the heat.

Well I'm going to be that person to raise the inevitable question...what do teacher parents do? 😀

Im with you OP. I also feel like the only parent in the uk who couldn’t care less about their children being hot in school 😂

school are saying they can be picked up at lunch- half the school is air conditioned! We have to work so they’re staying. You’ve got parents picking up just out of fear their children will be the only ones left. Absolute madness.

When I was at college in London, we had art classes in a Victorian school building, the kind that many schools still have. The windows were floor to ceiling and didn't open, no blinds, there was a concrete playground outside, and it got very hot. A couple of years before I started two girls collapsed and died of heatstroke, in that classroom, when the outside temperature wasn't anywhere near today's temperatures.

When it got above 25 in the summer, our classes were moved elsewhere or cancelled, but it was unbearable for the week or two before that -- and I'd lived in Saudi Arabia before starting college, I was used to heat.

Heat in schools can literally kill children. Or course schools should take steps to prevent that, even if parents work.

Schools can’t win no matter what they do. People complain if they close, stay open, and apparently some parents can’t even cope with being given the choice. Pathetic.

I work in a yR classroom. It was 32c today in class with us doing everything possible to cool it. It was the coolest classroom in the school... I did lunch duty in the hall. By the time I'd finished I genuinely felt ill and had completely changed colour. I literally hosed myself with a garden hose fully clothed after lunch and was dry again half an hour later just from being in class. My little ones were fractious, knackered or really fighty and it was awful. We're closed for Wednesday and Thursday and I am hugely grateful for this. It wasn't possible to keep them calm let alone teach.

I really hope that people care enough about kids to accept that if schools close, they will have to accept a reduction in many other important services due to parents having to take time off work at short notice. Sadly I don’t think that’s the case, they will expect everything else to carry on regardless.

Care for your child.

This thread is actually really sad. People really dont care about kids do they.

But surely if you grew up in 40 degree summers you were more used to them? I don’t struggle at all when the weather is below freezing but my South African friend does, to the extent she struggles with even a few minutes outside at that temperature. I’m ok in a thick jumper and jeans.

I live in a place where weather closures are so normal, they build the days into the school year. If by some miracle we don’t use them all, they just end the year early.

There are always parents who complain, but the reality is that the closures are because conditions are dangerous.

it’s not just about the conditions at the schools. Keeping people home as much as possible helps emergency personnel focus on people who truly have no choice to be out.

Parents supervising a small number of children are better able to watch for signs of stress and provide relief measures.

Update: My DD's primary school has emailed, at 6:50pm, to say they are closing school at 12:30 tomorrow, and there will of course be no after school club.
I am working all day and do not finish until 5:30pm. DH will be at work until 4:30pm. I have been there less than a year so I don't get paid for time off. Neither does DH as he is self employed. Our main source of childcare, MIL, is on holiday.
WTF are we supposed to do at this 11th hour?? 😭

My son’s nursery has asked parents to keep kids at home if possible. The UK isn’t like a Mediterranean country at 30 degrees, it’s much much worse. Everything is insulated and reflects heat, there is no air con really. My uncle is from the south of Spain and really struggles here in the heat, more so than when he was actually in Spain.

DS is also very pale and ginger and you can see him really clammy and fatigued in the heat. We have work commitments tomorrow so he will have to go in but will make sure he only does a half day.

I grew up in a country where 43 degrees was the norm in the summer.

School didn’t close. Ever.

We didn’t have air conditioning.

We didn’t take time out of lessons to eat ice lollies.

For assembley we were still expected to wear a blazer.

And sports day went ahead as normal.

People seem to think that schools in foreign countries are air conditioned. More times than not they really aren’t.

As for the argument that school isn’t childcare, I agree with that when it comes to out of hours, schools being expected to provide breakfast and after school clubs etc, but education is a legal requirement. Added to which, if you’re going to take the attitude that schools have the right to close as and when they see fit and the parents should suck it up, then you need to accept that parents should have the right to remove their children for holidays as and when they see fit, without being faced with fines and sanctions for doing so. You can’t have it both ways.

People are accepting that the schools are closed because it’s just children.

But what about the safety of others? Would it be ok for your bank to close for the safety of its workers? No call centres? No ability to manage your money?

What about all the local shops?

Where does safety become expendable and at what and whose price?