Who hasn't sent their children to school or will be collecting early?

[WFHquestion]

It must be uncomfortably hot this afternoon cooped up in a class of 30.

Have you sent yours or will you be collecting early?

Ours aren't doing anything productive anyway so will keep them off today and tomorrow to keep them cool rather than unnecessarily hot and bothered.

Stop sending them to school then.

My mistake it was 2019 that the last spell was 38+
My point is there has never been this mentally of ‘shut the schools’ at every little thing.
A significant proportion of children will be inadequately supervised when schools are shut unexpectedly.
If you don’t believe Teachers will do their best to make sure your child is cool ie basic levels of care why on Earth are you sending them to that school!?

@Silverswirl it's not question of if the teachers do their best or not. I absolutely trust my daughters teacher. However there is very little they can do with a classroom that is measuring 43 degrees ( yesterday) god know what it was today. Other than quiet activities and lots of hydration. Even with that in a small room with potentially 30 children in it in that heat it's pretty grim for most, unbearable for some and for other dangerous.

I am not suggesting that schools close, what I originally said was that schools should give parents the option to send in or keep at home. Our school did this. I am well aware not all parents can keep kids at home and some don't want to or would like to but can't. But not all schools gave this choice.

Are you not in the UK?

I grew up in England, and there has always been an expectation that schools would shut during certain weather conditions. Rarely a winter went by that we didn't have a snow day or two. Of course, people from countries where it was routinely that cold or colder thought it was hilarious! But then, we weren't geared up for it. So schools shut. Teachers would always be supportive - and where I lived (at the bottom of a steep hill), it was common that only one teacher could get in! The other teachers lived up the hill. So that one teacher was always quite clear that a snow day was necessary!

I do understand it's changed since we were children, in that these days higher temperatures are more common, and very snowy days perhaps less so. But when I was a child, no one ever suggested teachers were failing by not keeping schools open on snow days, and no one ever suggested children or parents were being silly by keeping their children home.

Why do you think this is any different?

(And, FWIW, I also had parents who kept me off school when they felt it was sensible, and I still learned to punctuate and capitalise correctly. I am not quite sure what fetishising attendance achieves?)

If you don’t believe Teachers will do their best to make sure your child is cool ie basic levels of care why on Earth are you sending them to that school!?

With the best will in the world I was simply unable to keep the children in my class cool yesterday.
We did what we could, but by the end of the day the half of the class that were still there were hot, tired and sweaty.

There was only so much we could do - shade, limited outdoor time, tiny windows open (we tried both - it was far too hot when they were closed), blinds closed, the small fan we found was on constantly, lots of water, did very little to avoid moving too much, etc. BUt it was still incredibly hot in the classrooms and the children were affected by it.

@Abraxan

Thanks for your efforts. I agree you've done your best.

My DD has had a number of nose bleeds so the last thing you'd have wanted is to deal with that whilst you have the rest of the class to contend with.

@Abraxan

I have no doubt that you and other teachers tried their best to keep the kids cool and comfortable.

My daughters school assured us that the kids would be ok in school but I kept my daughter off yesterday as the windows at school are all south facing apart from anything else, by 12:30 they were all being sent home anyway so I'm glad I made that decision personally.

Well my eldest sat in the living room with blinds all shut in her pants eating ice lollies because that's what it took to keep cool so no, I don't think her teachers would have been able to keep her cool at school and it's not because I don't trust them 🙄