To think closing schools or making them "optional" during the heatwave is putting pressure on working parents and is just a bit silly?

[Suchevilforebodings]

This doesn't actually effect me directly as neither of my children's schools have closed.
But some of the schools iny area are either closing or are making school optional IE: it won't be marked as absence.
I mean.... Really? Do kids actually need tome off because it's hot?
And is it fair on working parents to send out an email the day before to say school is closed? This heatwave was forecast last week.
Even making it "optional" puts the pressure on as the kids will want to stay off and many of their friends will be.
I just think it's bullshit tbh

There is a red weather warning. They don't make these up for fun. Red means serious threat to life. Children are especially vulnerable to heat.

Honestly, outside of essential and emergency services, we should be adhering to the advice to stay home. People will die in these heatwave. That's not melodramatic, just fact.

We’re in a red zone and the county council say only a “small number of special schools” have made the choice to close. That’s a whole county of children at school all day tomorrow. According to some of the posts here it’ll kill them.

Parents who sensibly decide their DC’s will be better off at home will report their DC’s as unwell if their school has such a rigid approach during exceptional circumstances

I think the issue is just that working parents can't just have a day off paid. Maybe we should focus energy into protesting for that rather than complaining about the schools closing.

Significant funding disparities exist between counties which can directly impact
the quality of school buildings and daily operations.

Schools don't make decisions based on what will make parenting easier for you.

They make decisions based on risk assessments, and I'm glad we haven't followed France with a blanket approach. Different schools have radically different circumstances.

For example, DS1's comp now has half the classrooms air conditioned - the current head has made it her top priority for capital budgets. With Y11 and Y13 gone and a supply of portable aircon units, school is the best and safest place for them to be, even with going home in the hotter part of the day (fairly small catchment, no Tube or similar.)

Comp down the road was built about 20 years ago and is visually lovely with all its south-facing glass. It is also the equivalent of a greenhouse in this weather. No way to keep the students adequately safe, so they're closing at lunchtime.

DS2's primary has optional pickup from lunchtime, recognising that for many parents as well as small children, walking home in a slightly cooler part of the day is preferable and that classrooms with 30 kids are harder to keep comfortable than classrooms with 20. No aircon but lucky to have a playground with lots of shade and very little concrete, and good airflow to classrooms. After school club is open but they're not charging if parents choose to keep kids home instead.

It's not a school's job to take "some of our parents struggle to be firm and realistic with their children" into account when making decisions about what's safest for the people working and learning at the school.

Schools have a rigid approach during normal circumstances so you do as you see fit.

I can confirm she is not exaggerating. Our school is the same!

Your quite correct, they could just stop and then get calls from 125 parents complaining about spoilt food. (just from one day)

But you could actual think before you reply.

I support the closing of schools in the red alert areas. Its dangerously hot, a health and safety risk. But I have the luxury of WFH set up and an older child so the inconvenience is minimal. Our school is shut, no choice. But if there was a choice I wouldn't send DS in.

The secondary school I work in; for some reason known only to the utter bellend who designed it; is made entirely from glass yet with no windows. Just glass. It has an ‘air management system’ that isn’t managing.

We are closing at lunchtime this week.

I mean i was sitting by myself in the coolest room if my house this afternoon. Amazing ventilation, catches any breeze it can find, north facing and literally never gets direct sunlight. Always naturally at least 5 degrees cooler than the other downstairs rooms.

And at 3pm it was 29 degrees. Tolerable, when sitting by myself with a cool drink and a light breeze coming off the paddling pool outside.

I'm impressed that any school classroom was only 32 degrees at the same time in the same conditions!

Just not practical with no air con. We’ve closed for two days - it’s not just the teachers/ students it’s facilities and kitchen staff and games/Pe and commuting for staff and students. As PP have said there will need to be investment in air con. The theatre which is the only place that has it in my school was bliss today but we all struggled elsewhere.

Given how many children are in the average classroom, and the average school infrastructure, its not unreasonable. I was in a play in November in a local school and the hall got so hot the walls were running. It was gross.

Not sure what age childrens temp regulation becomes more like adults, but if its anything like my elderly dad, I would not be sending them anywhere tomorrow where there are lots of other people, unless it was a cooling centre.

Why are so many MNers naively or nastily macho about extreme weather? I don't get it. Red alerts from the Met Office are warning of excess deaths if precautions and changes to routine aren't made. Why would you argue with that - or do you all genuinely think you know better than guidelines laid down by crisis experts and meteorologists?

I'm in the red zone for heat and it's been unbearable at home for the last two days. I can't even imagine the next two. But there's only been 2-4 of us in the house at any one time. 30 kids packed into a classroom with lots of big windows... and blinds don't stop the sun heating up the window glass and radiating it inwards.

Some things have to change. We have to take really stringent measures to limit climate change, we have to build smarter and maybe we have to change our summer school hours.

Two kids in my children’s class vomited today due to overheating. YABU.

In my classroom today it was unbearable. We are in a red area. One fan. Blinds that are broken barely covering the window. Lights off. I've had migraine all day yesterday and today. Students fainting and many looking absolutely awful, despite being in their pe kits (polyester) We don't nake these decisions to partially or fully close lightly. And please don't forget that we are parents too, my child's school offered optional pick up today - of course I could not collect her.

I'm currently in the US and where I live all of the school district employees get the time off if the schools close for heat (or cold, for that matter). Even the administrative employees that work in air conditioned offices. I understand the schools can be stifling and awful for the children and the teachers, but the others? It is bananas.

I spent the evening in the school hall for an event last night and I genuinely can’t believe no one passed out. Everyone was absolutely drenched in sweat and I really think I’ve been in saunas that weren’t as hot. DS has been on mornings only this week and now fully shut for the rest of the week and he said they haven’t been able to do any school work as too hot. So they may as well be at home where they can cool off. Teachers are also human beings and don’t deserve to work in those conditions. I do need to work but my children come first and I’d rather they were safe at home with me.

These are not normal circumstances - have you not seen the updates from the Met Office.,

I work in an office with no air conditioning. We all got sent home and hour early and are working from home tomorrow and Thursday.

DS school is staying open, but it has air conditioning so he's better off there than at home! If they didn't I'd fully support them closing. If risk assessments say it's too hot for me to be in the office, it would be too hot for my son to be in school in the same temperature.

@drdoolittlejennubs As an ex primary teacher I fully understand; it's so difficult having to look after 30 other people's kids in this severe heat when you can't go and get your own little ones.

I'm actually really not trying to be combative but surely you can see this isn't an argument? Crisis experts and meteorologists? Could you have picked 2 more unreliable disciplines? They are literally trying to predict the future - a notoriously and inherently fallible endeavour.

Some things have to change. We have to take really stringent measures to limit climate change, we have to build smarter and maybe we have to change our summer school hours.

I don't disagree with any of that, but also it's also not realistic - not practically and not financially. Certainly not before we've had maaaany more years of this.

A lot of children, especially in cities, live in dangerously overheated flats or temporary accomodation. So it's not always 'sensible' to keep them at home where it will be even hotter, as well as overcrowded.

Primary DC's school is fully open (aircon, although not amazing, but have a big field with lots of trees). Secondary is doing a half day although they also have Aircon and DD said it was 'fine' today. Hopefully schools will do as hers has done and let it be known to parents that if it is better to keep the kids in school, they can.

It's easy to be sanctimonious about your Aircon and ability to lay on water play. Not everyone can do that (shades of COVID where lots of us who had to send our children in while we kept everyone else safe were shamed for it).

It's probably just as easy to be sanctimonious when your kids are going to a school with air con and not somewhere utterly intolerable.