Reception children too hot

[lockedinandout]

Name changed but I'm unsure how I feel about it.

I picked up my daughter from school for an appointment and found out they'd stripped down the kids into just their underwear in the classrooms to keep them cool. On the one hand they are only all 4/5 years old in Reception. On the other, it's inappropriate and I think if that's the extent they have to go to keep kids cool in the classroom, they should close.

AIBU to ask the school what's going on? Happy to be told I'm being fussy, because I can't decide whether I think this is ok or not.

Yup. And those saying “if it’s too hot they should have closed the school” … have you seen the vitriol that has been thrown at teachers for even daring to suggest this? Ha.

I don’t think that’s appropriate. My primary school age children would not have been wearing a vest today so they would have been in their pants? Was this an individual teacher’s decision? I can’t imagine the headteacher would have agreed this as a strategy to keep children cool. I would definitely ring the school to find out the facts.

It IS teacher bashing though

They cannot win

I expect like most parents we were given the copy and paste government guidelines) and warned under no uncertain terms that to keep them off would be an unauthorised absence.

Not the schools I know about. The parents got a choice whether to send kids in and it wasn't an unauthorised absence.

You need to take it up with the headteacher and the governors fpr not using their sense.

Yep.

I'm sure they weren't forced to do it. They get undressed down to their underwear every PE lesson. Not really different to swimwear. Not really seeing the problem but understand others might. The teacher was probably desperate to keep them cool somehow,

For everyone saying that they used to do PE in their vest and pants, I can't imagine that many parents sent their children in wearing a vest today. So these kids were just in their pants. I don't think it is acceptable, could see a few kids being quite upset by it.
Even 4 year olds aren't completely stupid, they know that what is acceptable at home or on the beach isn't acceptable in the classroom.

I was going to say the same. If the underwear thing actually happened it's not a good decision but all those saying they should have closed have probably missed the fury thrown at teachers at the possibility of schools closing during the upper 30s temperatures.

There were so many threads last week moaning "it's going to be too hot for my kid they should close schools" and then over the weekend "they're closing my kids school what should I do?"
For fucks sake please start taking some responsibility for your kids if you think it's right to keep them home then do it if they get an unauthorised absence so what? It's not going to be on their

Ok so technically their private’s are covered because they are wearing underwear but it’s not appropriate at school to do that!

Agreed!
I cannot believe this actually happened.

That should say on their CV.

It is though. In front of people not related to you and not in your own home - in public IMO. Would you strip down to your underwear in front of colleagues at work? Yes they are children but they deserve dignity and privacy.

@R1408 I will definitely be keeping them home tomorrow. I can now make a decision as their parent that this is something I'm not happy with, and make other arrangements to care for them. If the school had said was the cost of keeping the school open, that despite their lengthy letter this is what they would resort to, I could have done today. Reducing the number of hot bodies in the classroom might just help them out enough that this isn't necessary, so perhaps a win for all.

My reception age child was successfully kept safe at school (central London so very hot) without being in his underwear. His teacher gave them lots of water, they were all in shorts and t shirts not school uniform. He was fine.

There are girls in his class who wear the hijab as does his teacher so I don't think stripping would have gone down well.

This was a bad decision from this teacher. It is no more teacher bashing to say so than it is "midwife bashing" for women all the time on this site who talk about poor experiences in labour.

We did PE in our vests and knickers for most of infants and that was in the 90s. And we'd have to walk through school to get to the hall. My year 1 DS has announced that's embarrassing and he never would.....times have surely changed.

It sounds as though the teacher allowed children to take off clothes if they wanted to, rather than ordering the entire class to strip.

I'm an early years teacher, and I wouldn't do this personally, but that's because I've long experience of parents and wouldn't risk the inevitable complaints. I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with it, as long as the children are all comfortable and private areas of the body are covered.

I do think parents should have been given the option to keep children off today without the usual attendance-related blackmail, and those children who are in school should be doing activities aimed at keeping everybody cool and hydrated. I can't condemn a teacher for making a judgement if she was worried about the children. Her options were limited and no harm either meant or done.

I don't think it's inappropriate for young kids to be striped down to underwear at that age but I do think the classroom was way too hot and therefore not fit for purpose in this heat.

My DDs school gave us the option to keep kids at home as obviously not all parents have this choice. We kept dd home. Her classroom measures 43 degrees. I think around 1/3 of children were kept at home. But not all schools offered this. I think this should have been standard for all schools in the red zone for today and tomorrow.

Yes but pants (girls') had much better coverage then, were bigger and made of thicker material.

And to be clear and balanced, no, there's no suggestion that any of the children were forced to do it, that would be an issue of a whole different level.

And yes, I've seen some of the anger at schools who have closed, and I can see how for a school, it could be a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. I'm pretty sure what my kids school did shouldn't have been seen as the unacceptable cost, at the very least without informing parents first that this is what they might do.

At 4 and 5 I think it's a bit unusual but I wouldn't mind in extreme circumstances such as today. Kids at that age are barely more than toddlers.

I think the government guidance to schools around this heatwave has been appalling . It admits temperatures above a certain point can be dangerous for even healthy people , it admits that after a certain temperature fans are ineffective , yet will not commit to a maximum temperature in the classroom. I feel sorry for teachers .

inwouldnt have a problem with it, at private schools they all swim at least once a week in similar attire. However I think they could have communicated to parents to give a choice to bring them home.

Kids that age can't keep their hands out of their pants, this sounds like a hygiene nightmare! Sympathy for the teachers struggling along though. My daughter's school has been spraying them with a hose to keep them cool.

We did PE in vests and pants in infant school too and I started school in 1999. So I don’t think there’s a problem with that level of clothing per se. But I do agree, if they have to do that as an emergency measure then they should just close the school.