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

I am nervous but I trust the school - mine are open all week and I can tell they have had complaints based on the follow up message they have posted. I am happy to send mine in if the school say they are managing, the kids seem happy and they are doing lots of things to keep them cool, giving them icepops, foot spas etc so all fine. No uniform expected either just PE kits.

If the school said they had to close as they didn't think it was safe, equally fine by me as I trust their judgement, though honestly I live in a first floor maisonette with no garden so with 3 little ones it would likely be a lot worse for them.

The only thing I worry about is school pickup tomorrow, hottest day forecast for us and we live relatively far from the school and up a big hill, we dont drive. Might see if I can sort a lift for them.

We had classrooms that were 35 degrees by 10.30 today. It isn't just a bit hot.

I absolutely do think it is reasonable that parents take responsibility for their own childrens well being during a red weather/health warning.

My son is better off at school, both now and when it snows.

He’s in a small class of 8, in a special needs school, which he attends because he’s severely autistic. They’re in a full size class room between 8 of them.

Upsetting his routine leads to absolute meltdown. At home, he’d want to be outside all day, Sunday he first started asking at 5:45am. There’s only so long you can say no for, before that also becomes a meltdown.

Meltdowns are funnily enough very warm experiences.

At school he will stay inside, play with his peers, and do either some very light learning or watch Cars for the 19th time.

At home he’d climb the walls, refuse to put a hat on outside, battle us over suncream, and spend all day shouting about not being at school. It would make him hotter.

Harsh as it may be, he’s better off going in.

To add, we are in a red area in the SE.

School isn't there to provide child care. It's there to provide education. If it's too hot for them to be a safe environment what do uou suggest they do?

"People also need to remember that because they are ‘fine’ in extreme heat, doesn’t mean everyone else is. And wittering on about the summer of ‘76 is just tedious now."

Exactly. Some people are less able to cope with the heat than others. I remember 76, but I was young then and could cope with it. Now I couldn't - and it's hotter now than it was in 76.

Such ‘mumsnet’ answers!!!
children are far safer in schools than anywhere else.
close schools with no notice and:
10000 of children in overcrowded poor housing with inadequate parents who are even less able to parent when under stress. Abuse rises in hot weather.
10000 children left unsupervised by parents who can’t afford to just take the day off - children will die on Wednesday & Thursday from drowning / heatstroke and it won’t be the ones in school

What a surprise. You have no idea of what it’s like to work in a school so of course you think it’s ridiculous and ‘overreaction to heat’

trust me it’s not nice in a classroom that is already hotter than outside at 10am and trying to you know actually teach. And what a lot of people don’t understand (because they’ve never set foot inside a classroom since they were 16) is that once the temperature hits a certain point inside the classroom then learning is drastically reduced

FYI even France are closing their schools in some areas. So are they overreacting as well?

Schools have a duty of care to both staff and children. If any of them get seriously ill, the school will be liable. Schools like yours sound awful, and they shouldn't be open in heat like this.

@MyKindHikerthat’s completely out of the financial capacity of some parents. Especially to sort with less than 24 hours as my kids school has given. (Email went out at 6pm tonight) 20 somethings want minimum wage around here - and I don’t know them from Adam I’m not about to leave my kids with a stranger for 8 hours.

if it’s a school day the school should remain open. Schools should be fined for closing just like we are fined for taking our kids out of school during term time. Perhaps they should stop harping on about donating for this fund that fund or some school in India (worlds 5th largest economy) and invest in some AC.

you point out your mates have STAHP amongst them to rotate the childcare - lots of friendship groups don’t, or don’t have the resources/capacity to look after a larger group of children than their own

How do you know she is exaggerating? Have you been to her school?

I wish our primary school would shut, the head teacher it seems has zero intention of doing so- which then puts pressure on me as to whether I keep them off or not. I’d rather not have an absence marked down (had a spate of illnesses at Christmas so attendance is lower than I would like - chickenpox, tonsillitis etc)
Im really unsure what the best thing to do is!

YABU. Our secondary is closing Wed & Thurs this week. The kids are on an enrichment week so no lessons. They were on a trip today. There is a limited number of classrooms that have air conditioning in them. They opened the windows at 5am today, at midday the classroom temperatures measured 35 degrees and there were no children in the class. It would be much higher if pupils and their laptops were in the class. So I agree with them.

My office has air conditioning but it wasn’t working and that was on Monday. So no way was I going back into the office Tues-Thurs this week either. I do appreciate that a large majority of people do not have this choice. Also train and tube tracks start to buckle and can’t go faster when we go above certain temperatures.

Wow. Schools fined because they’ve put children’s health first? You really want children in classrooms that are hitting 40 degrees which fyi they aren’t learning they are just being babysat

perhaps you should go and work in a school then you might learn something

Our school is air conditioned. And it’s closing. And it closed at 12 today so everyone had to walk home in the midday heat. To sit in their un-air conditioned houses. Madness.

You clearly have never spent summer in a range of schools. Many are South facing glass walls, no/broken blinds, barely opening windows, you can't leave open overnight to cool down due to security, black flat roofs with poor insulation. Often surrounded by dark tarmac and little shade close by. Lots of bodies trying to lose heat.

They were hell in the 90s and early 00s. At my kids school kids fainted on an ordinary summer day in assembly. (2010's) It's hotter now.

It's not exaggerating to say the buildings are hot. My SW facing flat gets up to 30 with windows open all night, all curtains and blinds drawn only three sweaty bodies in in separate rooms!

Getting kids cool in temperatures around body temp is difficult.

None of the schools I worked in had trees that shaded any of the buildings.

In one of our classrooms today it was 42 degrees. It was 28 outside.

Kids cant learn in this heat, staff cant teach. It is horrible.

Why the fuck don’t schools just get aircon? It’s 2026.

Lambeth.

I’m sure they’d love to! Who is going to pay for it?

Because we can’t fucking afford it. Because successive governments have slashed our fucking funding

It would cost about £3500 per classroom. Schools are struggling to pay for glue sticks where are they supposed to get this amount of moneys?

Its hysterical- schools and unions have repeatedly said how investment is urgently needed
for school buildings, the Tories pulled allocated school building funding but somehow it’s still the fault of schools when buildings can’t keep kids safe!!

Because schools are struggling to buy the basics.

Most schools can't afford to get fans in the classrooms.

If both parents work AND can't afford a day's emergency childcare at minimum wage something's clearly gone very wrong with the cost of living crisis.

There are options for those who want to find them.

I imagine those who 'can't afford childcare' just don't want to cut back on luxuries and would prefer for teachers to work in unsafe conditions babysitting their kids.