It’s not just ‘a bit of heat’ as one poster has said. We are under an Amber Met Office warning for Sunday & Monday (and I strongly believe this will be extended to Tuesday looking at the current models). There is also the possibility of 41°C (an outlier, but never seen on forecast models for the UK).
This isn’t scaremongering, this is concerning. All of the forecasting forums I belong to are rattled by the models.
Lots of UK schools are either giant Victorian monoliths with many floors & little green space in urban areas, others are 60s designed glass boxes that are no better than greenhouses. With windows that are latched (to prevent things, and kids, being dropped out of them) only opening an inch, and no air conditioning.
And how many schools have kept their rolling fields to send the kids out into for break time, or have most (as in my area) sold the land to build housing on to make up for education budget deficits?
The UK has a temperate, maritime climate. We don’t have the infrastructure that a country used to high temperatures builds into their schools. By virtue of our climate, it’s humid (even today we’ve had drizzle here in the south east). High humidity and high temperatures together are dangerous to vulnerable people. Hence the Meto warnings!
We cannot deny climate change. The UK will become hotter. Do we have the money in our education budgets to retro fit aircon? Of course we don’t (unless we all fancy a rise in taxation to cover it).
I’ve taught in many different schools, Victorian & modern. 30 kids in a stiflingly hot classroom is not conducive to any learning.
But then, our homes are designed for wet & cold weather. We’re all bloody sweltering.
Send your kids to school with hats, water bottles and plenty of sunscreen (wetting a hat is a great idea). I’d suggest the same for kids at home if you decide to keep them off.
But please be under no illusions, this situation is only going to get worse unless we spend serious money on infrastructure in schools to enable continuity of learning. (And don’t even get me started on bloody non existent winter infrastructure that means we grind to a halt when we get an inch of slush on the roads or greedy shareholders & corporations making eye watering profits from energy when we’ll have people becoming seriously ill from cold weather because they can’t afford to both heat and eat).