Should schools be closed at 35°C?

[DancingThroughLife02]

Not really an AIBU but looking ahead at the forecast for next week and it’s looking like a scorcher.

I work in a secondary school in a science classroom (which seems to get extra hot during practicals) and we have no fans or AC or anything at all to keep the children cool. Open windows don’t seem to help much. The thermostat in the classroom got above 30°C in the afternoon.

The children need to have their water bottles filled at break times and lunch times only and are not allowed to fill them during lessons - which I disagree with as so many come to me saying that they didn’t get a chance to fill theirs up in the 20 minute lunch break.

Last week I had children saying they were dizzy and feeling sick, and they’re made to go outside during breaks. I’m also not sure that anything I taught them during the extra hot days actually stuck in anyway as they all seemed melted onto the desks.

I know there is a legal lower temperature limit for classrooms/workplaces but maybe with the increasing summer temperatures over the last few years we need to start considering investing in ACs as the heat in summer seems to be more prolonged than a couple hot days and in the meantime consider health and safety of the students (and teachers as even I was beginning to feel a bit dizzy).

June 1976 - 36.5 (June record set)
June 2026 - according to netweather temps likely to be between 37 - 40.

So potentially 3 degrees above the record.

yes average temps are likely to rise.
rather than ignoring it, why wouldnt we look a means to adapt to the change?

When I did my GCSEs the winter was so cold the sea froze and the summer was so warm the sea boiled. I did a 20 mile walk to school in a blizzard all winter fending off polar bears and then in the summer the ground was so hot my shoes melted. Did schools close? Nope. Did colleges close? Nope.

Indeed. But it's perfectly possible to teach well online with the right set up and tech.

My son could even do group work in breakout rooms

The French did after the elderly died in retirement homes and homes in Paris. That was a shocking time.

I didn’t know that. It’s grim that it took deaths to force adaptations.

OP is special because she is trying to change things to make things safer for everyone in schools.

If you don't care about the teachers, do you have any thoughts about the kids and making things better for them?

Laboratories are different to normal classrooms.
CLEAPSS guide PS082 about a third of the way down the second page quite clearly states that there must be no eating and drinking in labs as it is a COSHH regulation.
Also, lab taps are not generally classed as drinking water quality and so shouldnt be used to refill bottles either.
Consequently I have to ask students to step outside the room to use their water bottles and they can't have them out on the desks in the lab. Yes it can be disruptive but the kids are trained not to ask at inappropriate times and wait until the teaching part is done and there is some sort of individual task where they can take a minute outside the room. They know not to ask too often and it works quite well.

Not my rules.

I don’t think they are “pussies”, just not prepared enough or knowledgeable enough to deal with high temperatures. In hot places you have different systems of ventilation, different schedules, different building techniques and even different ways of dressing or eating.

If you get people from hot countries into the UK they would probably freeze even in the summer, not because they are “pussies” but because they are not used to the weather or have the right clothes to deal with it. Last summer I had friends visiting from Texas in July, knowing they are used to over 40 degrees temperatures over the summer, I suggested leaving the shorts and sandals at home and bringing a light summer jacket/jumpers for the evening. I was walking around in a shirt and jeans all day while they were so cold they were wearing winter hiking jackets and still went and bought scarves and gloves by 5pm… it was 17 degrees in Edinburgh on that day! I even sent them to bed with hot water bottles and winter duvets. Obviously, they are used to American style air conditioning and heating, I couldn’t expect them to get used to Victorian house’s indoors weather and northern breeze in a day!

I remember commenting to other friends from the same area that there were warnings we would get over 40 degrees for a couple of days in the summer, they just laughed it off saying they were over that most days no problem but they were quite shocked and asked how we were going to survive as soon as I mentioned the vast majority of households in Britain do not have air cooling systems just useless fans that we all knew only recirculate hot air but do not have a real impact on bringing temperatures down.

FWIW I remember my secondary school closing early many times on snowy days - 1979 - 1985.

You only had to look out and see the snow coming down to know you’d be heading home soon!

And equally many schools wouldn’t open at all from the morning and you’d have to listen to local radio to find out if yours was one of them - oh the absolute joy 🤣

I travelled to school by coach and we all had the double chance of no school because the coach company would often cancel in snow, even if school was actually open.

So no, schools did not always stay open by any means.

And we did not experience this heat in our childhoods, nothing close.

1976 was a lovely dry heat - so much easier to tolerate. It was like being in Spain. You can’t compare at all to the humid, torrid summers we have now - it’s the humidity combined with extreme heat that makes it unbearable for many, and dangerous for some.

Plus - we were younger then! Our bodies could cope so much better with higher temperatures - you remember it with a rosy glow because you were not the same person then!

Now at 60 my system does NOT cope well with hot humid weather, anyone menopause age has surely experienced that. And if you take certain medications - which I do - that will make it even harder to tolerate heat.

I’m embarrassed to be part of that generation who are being so callous and dismissive. We’ve moved on from expecting people to suffer just because - we can do better than that now.

Yes we need to get used to the new norm but by finding adaptations and applying new standards. This is not going away and we cannot expect to just carry on as we did 50 years ago.

It's the same with businesses - they treat customers like dirt and people just say "oh well it's their business, they can do what they like". Why are people so passive? It's infuriating.

Going back to schools there was a guy on Radio 4 this morning who was talking about having flexibility with the school day so eg you could start at 7am and finish by noon to avoid the hottest part of the day. Not sure what parents would think of that, though it could work at secondary level where the kids are old enough to get themselves home I guess.

@Llamallamafruitpyjama

my son had one last year aged 15 no epilepsy

in history!! It was boiling and he had had a pint of water already.

It's looking very gnarly for Thursday. I think they should close the schools from midday in England on Wed and Thurs. Wales and Scotland aren't quite so hot. No school is prepared for this . . .

My son won't be going if he can't cope...he's autistic so doesn't drink except at lunch time and refuses to wear shorts so gets very rough in hot weather

Well yes it is becoming the norm so we have to adapt rather than subjecting people to misery. Air conditioning needs to be installed in schools and alter the school day if needed.

I am beginning to wonder if we should move the summer holidays so we finish end of May/beginning of June and go back in August. The hottest points always seem to be late June/early July and no learning happens so why not just finish school earlier?

Not sure whether the bus companies would be able to cope with that though.

I could be on board with this.

And move the bloody exams to November. It's sadistic making children do exams at the only time of year the weather is nice.

Science could save us. UCL have developed radiative cooling paint that they are about to trial on London buses - looks amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AMpUCYp3V_4

The BBC article today has a misleading headline: "Extreme heat warning for UK as European temperatures set to exceed 40 degrees".

"Extreme heat" - tick.
Temperatures to "soar" - tick.
"Unprecedented" - tick.
Headline making it look as it will be 40 degrees in UK, but actually it won't, on reading the article more closely - tick.
Let Operation Fear begin.

And I forgot one.

Dark red weather map - tick.

Interestingly some hotter societies do that already. In Vietnam for example they've been off for a couple of weeks already and most go back mid August.

As a person who spent her teens in a very hot country, I often wonder what tourists are on swimming, sunbathing, exercising or walking around on scorching pavements at the hottest time of the day. If you don’t see many locals around, it is because they know exactly what they are dealing with. If someone tells you is not like that it is because they are so used to have air conditioning at all times so they have not noticed it.

Well the Met Office just issued a red warning.
So are we still saying "its just summer" or are we prepared to admit this is unprecedented and potentially dangerous now?

That headline only makes it look like UK temps will exceed 40 degrees if you have poor reading comprehension.

So you’re someone who a) hasn’t grasped the fact that the temps in 76 weren’t as high as recent heatwaves and not as high as the situation developing this week and b) who has no knowledge of conditions in schools half a century later?