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

Care for your child.

I really hope that people care enough about kids to accept that if schools close, they will have to accept a reduction in many other important services due to parents having to take time off work at short notice. Sadly I don’t think that’s the case, they will expect everything else to carry on regardless.

I work in a yR classroom. It was 32c today in class with us doing everything possible to cool it. It was the coolest classroom in the school... I did lunch duty in the hall. By the time I'd finished I genuinely felt ill and had completely changed colour. I literally hosed myself with a garden hose fully clothed after lunch and was dry again half an hour later just from being in class. My little ones were fractious, knackered or really fighty and it was awful. We're closed for Wednesday and Thursday and I am hugely grateful for this. It wasn't possible to keep them calm let alone teach.

Schools can’t win no matter what they do. People complain if they close, stay open, and apparently some parents can’t even cope with being given the choice. Pathetic.

When I was at college in London, we had art classes in a Victorian school building, the kind that many schools still have. The windows were floor to ceiling and didn't open, no blinds, there was a concrete playground outside, and it got very hot. A couple of years before I started two girls collapsed and died of heatstroke, in that classroom, when the outside temperature wasn't anywhere near today's temperatures.

When it got above 25 in the summer, our classes were moved elsewhere or cancelled, but it was unbearable for the week or two before that -- and I'd lived in Saudi Arabia before starting college, I was used to heat.

Heat in schools can literally kill children. Or course schools should take steps to prevent that, even if parents work.

Im with you OP. I also feel like the only parent in the uk who couldn’t care less about their children being hot in school 😂

school are saying they can be picked up at lunch- half the school is air conditioned! We have to work so they’re staying. You’ve got parents picking up just out of fear their children will be the only ones left. Absolute madness.

Well I'm going to be that person to raise the inevitable question...what do teacher parents do? 😀

The only people who can have a real opinion on this are people who are working in schools. I am a teacher, and today has been awful. We cannot safeguard 30 kids in a classroom from being dehydrated etc, in a classroom where the window opens up an inch, some kids refuse to drink water, some turned up in long sleeves and trousers and refused to get changed, they are not allowed outside so are stuck in one room all day, no fans. Etc etc…. It was horrific. I have a huge headache this evening from the heat.

In our primary schools some classes are not too bad and others are obscenely hot and would be dangerous for kids and staff

there are arrangements to be made for the children in those classes- eg going to the shady woods. However there is only so much moving around you can do.

We asked favours of friends to take our DC’s home with them. We returned the favour and took a day off during the school holidays and offered to take their DC’s out for the day

Alternatively you or your DH will have to take their DC’s day off.

You start accruing statutory paid holiday fr your first day of employment . There is no waiting period before holiday entitlement begins.

Agreed. Our school is a new build that’s been made with heavily insulated walls and a roof. This coupled with the body heat from 30 kids in a class, makes it very warm to begin with. This is great in winter but awful in the summer. It’s too hot this week and they’ve made the sensible decision to close Wednesday and Thursday. They have the children’s best interests at heart.

I would have thought most would be relieved.

You don't know what I do for a living

If I was still a working parent my children would be going into school. But if I was a sahm they’d still be going in. I wouldn’t have cared if their friends were off or not. Hot weather isn’t a reason to stay off school.

DC’s school is closing tomorrow at 1pm but found out we’re staying open. DS is in Year 7 but has ASD so he can’t stay home alone for long periods. I’m taking unpaid leave for the afternoon.

Don't be so melodramatic. Life isn't black and white

Why are you opening windows when the temperature is warmer outside than in and why are the kids not allowed outside?

ours all are. It’s fairly breezy, not bad outside as long as you stick to the shade. Safer than indoors surely.

Well that’s kind of my point I guess. School closures will have wider implications. A teacher may have to take emergency parental leave because their child’s school has closed, having a knock on effect on their own class.
So society as a whole, parents and non parents, will need to accept that in times like this services will be reduced. There was a thread earlier complaining that a Tesco delivery was cancelled this morning due to the heat. Maybe they’re short staffed because some of their drivers were told late last night that their child’s school won’t be open today?

@MrsMurphyIWish Can all teachers with school age children take unpaid leave? I don't know the answer to the question as I'm out of teaching now (did my time - 22 years in primary teaching). I have three kids and never once took time off to care for them - I knew it would have been frowned upon. Fortunately I had local parents that could help out.

Maybe it’s time then to accept that we need to go back to a society where one parent is expected to stay at home to care for the children.

Because with schools closing whenever they feel they need to, and as weather becomes more extreme, parents can’t guarantee that they’re able to work full-time.

So maybe we need to go back to the days when one parent doesn’t.

Relieved that other services are reduced? I doubt it! I work in healthcare and trust me no one is relieved when I have to cancel people’s appointments because I have to take time off to look after my kids!

Many school playgrounds have zero shade.

Most workplaces don’t allow people to take holiday at such short notice.

And if half of your workforce have children it’s just not practical to allow it.

Been teaching 26 years. I’ve never been refused - always been unpaid though. The chicken pox month was a killer (when DD caught it and then DS!).

Well you were all happy to disappear during Covid whilst schools remained open throughout.