“They’ll survive” - children in schools deserve to actually learn

[noblegiraffe]

There have been so many responses to threads about the heat in schools of ‘we survived in 76, kids will be fine’.

It wasn’t even the hottest day yesterday and by mid-morning, very little learning was going on. Kids couldn’t concentrate, even A-level students were making silly mistakes and very, very little work was completed Everyone was extremely uncomfortable and it was more a test of endurance than a place of learning. My classroom was 28 degrees at 8:15am and only got hotter as the day progressed, despite me doing all the right stuff around blinds, windows, doors. The kids were in PE kits and had plenty of water, per government recommendations, but they were not well.

But they survived - so that’s all ok? That’s the best we can expect from schools? No learning and a lot of discomfort/actively feeling ill? And now schools are even having to close.

Bearing in mind that it was only just over 30 yesterday, and given the increasing global temperature, how many more hours of learning will be lost before ‘they survived’ isn’t accepted as the expectation for our kids in schools in the summer and something is actually done about it?

Whether that’s fitting air conditioning (hah), changing the timings of the school day to start earlier and finish earlier when the temperature rises, or changing the school year so the kids break up earlier and go back earlier, something should happen. The country cannot afford to lose all these learning hours and parents and children shouldn’t have to put up with this inadequacy in provision.

How about schools get out of this ‘learning at all cost’ mindset and let them just have a fun water fight on the school field. Get loads of paddling pools in and let them have fun with ice lollies and water play. I think schools have forgotten to be places of enjoyment and peer group bonding.

I think my favourite thing about all the 1976 references is that people could google the highest temperatures then in the time it takes them to type something stupid. It's a 10 second job to learn that it wasn't as hot then as it is this week.

Well when I suggested that closures should be swapped with inset days, I was met with refusal by the school. They even have air con in most classrooms! My children said their classrooms were not hot, the blinds were down, fans and air con on. It is hotter at home.

Perhaps if schools were less enthusiastic to cancel lessons, it would appear less like some staff were using hot weather to shirk.

I’m a secondary teacher in a school with 1400 pupils. Inane suggestions like this aren’t helpful. How many days should a Y12 take out from learning the syllabus for their A-levels to piss about on the field while pupils in other schools which have air con can continue learning?

It’s not forever, chill out and let them have fun. DC’s indie school have got them in PE kits all week and they’re running though sprinklers at breaks. Think outside the rigid curriculum box.

They are learning resilience, which does appear to be disappearing in some younger people.

Oh yes, let’s make sitting at school being miserable and learning nothing into a virtue instead of a disgrace. It’s the British way 👍

Yes schools and everywhere else really need to have changes made to reflect the changing climate. Not sure there’s much else to add?

I think if I were paying thousands of pounds and my kids weren’t learning anything at school I’d be asking for a refund.

Also sitting focusing on how hot you are all the time doesn’t help. My husband’s a chef and has been since he was probably not much older than your school kids. He just drinks lots of water and gets on with it

A government that would come to grip with sorting out infrastructure to cope with climate change would have my vote. Which includes air conditioning in schools and hospitals.

I read a meme a couple of years ago- can’t remember where it was posted- that went along the lines of “I’ll listen to you telling me about the summer of ‘76 if you sell me your house for exactly what you paid for it back then”. This is now my stock answer if 1976 gets mentioned by a boomer-type saying that kids today don’t know that they’re born.

As with most things on here, it's always a race to the bottom.

Well I’m not, I’m happy thanks. So are the kids. And the teachers who had water guns at drop off Happy all round.

What a hero! But he isn’t a child and isn’t supposed to be learning Pythagoras.

Other children will be learning Pythagoras because their schools have a better set-up, your child will be missing out. Research shows that you learn less as the temperature goes up, it’s not just a case of ‘getting on with it’.

How many days of waterfights are you delightedly happy to pay for when other kids are learning?

I am definitely in the "they will survive" camp. But I don't disagree that if there are consistent changes to the weather, changes to the school schedule make sense.

In parts of Europe, the school year finishes earlier and starts earlier - I don't know if that's always been the case, but as June appears to be the hottest month these days, that makes sense to me.

I grew up in South Africa and our school day started and finished earlier (mostly).

I also agree that better cooling systems in schools is a good idea if this sort of heat is going to be a regular thing. I dont' think it's that big a deal for children to have to function less than at their best occassionally, but if the weather is going to be like this for weeks at a time, then yes, it's worth finding better solutoins.

I am glad that schools appear to be being a bit more sensible on school uniform this time round. This obsession with wearing ties and buttoned up shirts and blazers at secondary school is batshit to me. We had very strict uniform rules, but in the summer, we didn't wear ties, boys wore shorts, girls wore skirts and from memory, blazers could be abndoned at certain times. We definitely didn't have to wear them during the day at school - possibly just to and from school. We literally had an entire different uniform for summer and winter.

Honestly they’re already at school much less than most, I trust the teachers to adjust the workload as they see fit.

It’s never been any different and their results are good.

Yes since covid people now call for school
closures at the drop of a hat. Previously schools only closed if eg bad snow and staff couldn’t get in.

And while I’m sure most teachers still work hard during closures, I am pretty sure my primary school head teacher neighbour wasn’t the only one who seemed to spend most of the Covid one sunbathing

I do think it's worth looking at holiday dates as seems June often hotter than August (that might just be my perception because I dont notice heat when kids not at school though). Could break mid-June and go back start of August instead?

I’m fairly sure that we did go home early during the 1976 summer, and also whenever it snowed because our heating system was ancient. I also remember the teacher playing the Wimbledon final on the radio, and the French teacher telling us about his experiences with various substances at Glastonbury. Mind you, he also got a girl in my year pregnant.

The wet bulb temperature in my location is set to be 30 tomorrow which is creeping towards the critical limit of 35.

From the University of Reading:

"Wet bulb temperature is a measure that combines heat and humidity to give a truer picture of how the body experiences extreme weather. It reflects how well sweat can evaporate from the skin, because evaporation is what cools us down. When humidity is high, sweat cannot evaporate as effectively, so the body struggles to regulate its temperature even if the air temperature itself is not at its peak.
"The critical threshold is a wet bulb temperature of 35°C, the point at which even a healthy person at rest cannot cool themselves, regardless of how much water they drink or shade they find. We have never come close to that in the UK, but that does not mean wet bulb conditions cannot become genuinely dangerous well below it.”

The Met office does not issue a red warning lightly. There is a genuine risk to life with this heat. It is entirely sensible that the schools are closing and when my kids come home early today I shall be picking them up in the air conditioned car, throwing them in a cool shower when they get home and keeping them in the house with cold drinks.

No need to be snarky. I didn’t say he was a hero but the point is (a) he was young once and (b) sitting whining about how hot it is for hours isn’t going to help.

actually why are you even here? I thought teachers worked constantly all day every day and wouldn’t have time to be on MN in the working day?

Jesus if there’s a more moany profession than teachers I’m yet to find it. Bloody hell we all have to work

To be honest I don’t think many changes are required/ realistic.

we can have those temperatures in June (6 weeks before term end) and even end of May to be honest. We can’t have 3 months off school. So any adjustment would be moving days around not weeks or months.

starting early and finishing early seems fine, as long as after school clubs continue to make a stab at covering adult working hours

our primary schools (1920s) has just installed air con. I know this retrofit is harder in much bigger secondaries but I assume new builds in schools have had air con for some time now, and will continue to be installed, so it’s not a total air con desert, especially over time.

I do agree that schools should have some kind of cooling measures included. Especially those that are newly built and in the process of being built.

My DDs school (built early 2000s) has a wrap around awning which provides shade to the classroom and a shaded outside play space but also allows a dry sheltered outdoor play space in the winter and wet weather. They also have huge sweeping curtains across the roof windows and a passive airflow system. They have just developed an area of the playground that has lots of trees to make it a shaded summer play space.

The addition of window awnings/ shades can make a huge difference. Same with wrap around awnings or just awnings, a school I worked at had one retrofitted with fixings to the building and then pillars to support the shade in the playground - again allowing for a sheltered from the elements outdoor play space in the winter.