Sports days in the heat being cancelled

[LovelyBath77]

Kind of wish ours was. It's meant to be really hot this week and it will be at 1.30pm. Poor kids.

Fuck me the stupid comments from our Aussie and American friends

WE DONT LIVE IN A HOT CLIMATE
IT WAS FUCKN SNOWING 3 MONTHS AGO!
OUR SUMMERS USUALLY CONSIST OF RAIN AND MILD HEAT
it was 30 degrees here today with no cool breeze, my dc who are not snowflakes fell asleep at 5pm
Because WE ARE NOT USED TO THAT KIND OF HEAT
what does it take for some people to understand when you are living in a relatively cold country (Ireland) 30 degree heat is kind of a big deal ffs

It was snowing here three months ago too. We get more snow on average than you do, and our average winter temperature is lower than yours.

Lol @ the competitive climating 😆

The point is... (once more for the cheap seats).... we aren’t used to it. If you live somewhere where it frequently gets hot then you are used to it, obviously!

23 degrees is more than hot enough for me. Anything above that and I’m sweaty and grumpy.

As is always stated multiple times on the competitive climate threads, we don't have air con or fans, many of our school buildings are made up of walls of glass windows, some of which don't even open. Many buses and trains have tiny windows that don't open. I had the heating on about a month ago because it was freezing. Now I'm awake at 5am with two children under 2 with temperatures over 38 degrees because my bedroom is east facing and currently 30 degrees overnight.

Many people don't take advice to avoid the sun or sit in the shade and school fields often don't have shade because it's not really necessary 99% of the time.

So it's fantastic that you can not melt in the sun when it's 72 degrees out. And it's great that you can drive your car in -52 degrees. But we don't care.

But America and Australia have air con in homes, shops and cars as standard because it regularly gets warm there.

This kind of weather is massively unusual in the U.K. and it's also a very different heat to Australia. There's no breeze here, it's sticky and humid as anything and you know what? There's nothing wrong with struggling to cope with that when you're not used to it.

These threads always get so competitive - coping with 9,000 degree heat or whatever doesn't make you a better person than someone who'd rather be indoors in front of a fan on a day like that!

But we don't care. 😆

I can't be the only one who's giggling at the failure to grasp the point by our recent American and Australian contributors...

Its hardly 45 degrees people come on! our sports day was on a hot day, the kids had hats/suncream on, lots to drink and lots of shade to sit in when not competing in anything, keeping them at home to miss sports day because it's hot is ridiculous, the poor child may of wanted to participate.

My Year 4 daughter was horrifically sunburned at a school athletics meet a few weeks ago. She's pale and blonde, and was left in an unshaded sports field in blazing sunshine for 6 hours with no opportunity to reapply suncreen as they weren't allowed to take their bags . Her face, arms, scalp and ears blistered, she had raging sunstroke and was off sick for a couple of days. The other kids in the team were similarly affected.

I'm all for sporting events being cancelled in the heat. We're just not set up for it.

Her school did go ahead with it's sports day this week, but they'd suddenly got hold of a stack of gazebos and every child came out clutching sunscreen and wearing a hat . A qualified nurse was on duty and each house was coralled into their gazebo and kept there by teachers, so they didn't wander into the sun. Hats were taken off only at the start line. if schools can manage that degree of sun safety, then crack on. I suspect most can't or won't.

No, it not 45C, but if I've read the UK forecast correctly, it's a good 7C warmer than typical, and has been a sudden rise. That takes time to adjust to.
You really do adjust to hotter places. Ok, so much above 40C is pretty miserable, but buildings and lifestyles are different in hot countries. If you'd told me 2 years ago that I could run in 30C heat, I'd have laughed at you, yet that's just what I do in winter. But there is no way I'd be expecting people acclimitised to UK weather to join me.

I'm miserable at 41 (min 30 overnight) right now, and think the UK schools need to assess their sports field and water provisions before going ahead with an all day outside event.

nikki23861
lots of shade to sit in when not competing in anything
I feel like banging my head against a wall. Please read the fucking thread. As stated numerous times, many schools have no shade and children can sit for 2 hours or more in midday sun, which goes against all Met office/NHS etc. advice. But it's great that your sports day was on and shaded.

In other news it was 12 degrees in Scotland but 31 on Wales on Tuesday. Therefore all Welsh schools should've run their sports days because I'm applying the MN blanket rule.

I feel like banging my head against a wall. Please read the fucking thread

I feel your pain. Perhaps 'With NO SHADE, whatsoever, anywhere. Sans Gazebo. Sans shade. In direct sunlight for hours' should be added to the thread title.

Well, we had the sports day in the early afternoon and it wasn't great- very hot and no shade, poor kids in sacks etc! No shade at all for parents but some had donated gazebos for the kids to sit in between races. It is over at least! yeah!

I'm starting to think some people have had their brains frazzled by the sun.

LovelyBath77
But are you sure there wasn't any shade? Because there must be shade. THERE'S ALWAYS SHADE.

Sure, noone's saying kids should sit in the sun for 2 hours. But as for the 'aircon as standard' crew... Well, it's really not. Plenty of schools in Australia and the US remain unairconditioned, many homes do too (ours was, when we lived there), you do get by. Sure, you are somewhat acclimatised but mostly in the sense you know how to put on a hat, your entire body doesn't change measurably like at altitude - and in plenty of cities, their winters are far colder than here also. That's why there's a bit of sniggering - because here we so spend so much time complaining about the heat, the cold, the rain (fun fact! NYC averages 121 rainy days a year, London averages 106) - when in fact it isn't that different from other places, the difference is in attitudes and preparedness.

Well Wales and Scotland have closer to 200 days of rain a year: London does not speak for all the UK, which has an actual average of 133. And whilst many places may not have air conditioning, houses are often built to fit their climate - tiles rather than carpets, ceiling fans, reflective roofs etc.

Plenty of people are saying kids should sit in the sun for two hours. Including a number who organise sports days, unfortunately.

We've just had Sports Day at DS's primary school. Much fanfare about the new improved sports day with circular track on main part of field and extra events like javelin (foam) and long jump.

Fitting the circular track in meant moving the whole centre of the event to the middle of the flat field. No shade at all for kids or watching parents.

No-one had thought that the reason there had always been a straight track at the top of the field was so that the boundary hedge and the trees at the far would create much needed areas of shade for everyone to sit comfortably while watching all the events!

I had heat fatigue yesterday and I blame mostly the fact the shops are boiling rather than lovely and cool in my home country.

Where the lovely cool British weather has relocated and I now have to suffer from the heat over here. Come back rain!

I agree that a lot of Brits moan a lot about weather in general, and yes we always embarrass ourselves when we have more snow than we know how to deal with!

For me, the difference is risk to health. Rain, wind and snow aren’t going to damage anyone’s health (unless we’re talking floods, hurricanes and blizzards which obviously do present risk, but are more unusual situations, at least in the UK).

I’m contrast, sun and heat don’t have to be at all extreme to be injurious to health. Heat exhaustion can happen very easily (especially to children, whose bodies cannot regulate temperature as efficiently as an adult’s can) and become very dangerous if not dealt with. Sun burn can result in melanoma, rates of which are on the rise in the UK. There is no such thing as a safe tan.

With that in mind, I don’t think children should be sitting in direct sun in high temps, with no shade, for any longer than half an hour or so. Would Australians really sit outside for 3 hours in the hottest part of the day? Without shade?

Melanoma Association say clearly that skin cancer has been steadily rising ever since people in Britain started taking foreign holidays.

Haven't British people being taking foreign holidays since time began?

Every resort I've ever been to on the planet has been mainly British people

Surely skin cancer is diagnosed in those people who as children never wore sun block? And possibly still don't? Also sun beds have had a huge impact

crunchymint may have meant since the start of the rise of the package holiday in the 1970s.