I'm a teacher currently on leave and I also have a child in Reception (not at my school). DC's classroom is in the middle of a tarmac playground in a portakabin that has no blinds. Recently when it has been hot they kept the children inside as it was deemed too hot for them to play on the playground. Not allowing them on the tarmac is fair enough but the school has large fields and woodland surrounding it with plenty of shade. We received a message earlier to inform us that most of the classrooms were already hitting 30 degrees this morning. As the rest of the school is not housed in a portakabin I imagine that the Reception classrooms might have been even hotter. I don't understand why they don't just move the Reception activities (or the older years too for that matter) outside into a shaded area when it is so hot, especially at this time of year when they're winding down anyway. The Receptions are little, it is sweltering in their classroom and surely it is not very conductive to learning or their health to stay in such a hot environment all day? On the rare occasion that I taught in an unsuitable classroom during a heatwave I moved the children's learning outside into shade for the day. It took about 5 minutes to move tables and resources to a different location with the help of the children.
I decided to keep DC at home today with DC's younger siblings and we went to a local lido first thing after which we spent the rest of the day at home in the garden next to the paddling pool doing reading, writing, counting etc through play.
Of course I feel guilty about keeping DC off school when DC is not poorly but AIBU thinking that the school should be more creative in how they approach teaching when it is so hot? And AIBU to keep my child off because in my opinion they don't look after the children properly by keeping them in a sweltering portakabin during a heatwave?