Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, has urged the government to implement comprehensive measures to help schools adapt to increasingly severe heatwaves affecting the UK. His remarks follow significant disruptions earlier this year when classroom temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, prompting hundreds of thousands of students to be sent home from school.
Kebede outlined several potential adaptations schools could consider, including adjustments to start and finish times, restructuring holiday schedules, and relocating examination periods away from the hottest months of summer. He emphasized that such changes would mirror practices already common in warmer climates and suggested that moving exams to cooler periods could help maintain educational continuity during extreme weather events.
A major focus of Kebede’s proposal centers on retrofitting the nation’s school buildings. He noted that most UK schools were constructed during the Victorian era or in the 1960s and 1970s, when they were designed for substantially different climate conditions. He called for a large-scale capital building programme to modernize facilities and make them suitable for contemporary climate conditions, arguing that such investment could simultaneously generate employment through unionized apprenticeships and benefit local communities.
Kebede highlighted the disproportionate impact of heat disruptions on disadvantaged populations, warning that without action, educational inequalities would worsen. Students in deprived urban areas, particularly those living in unsuitable housing, faced greater hardship when sent home during closures, while families unable to access flexible work arrangements struggled to manage supervision. He stressed that earlier this year’s conditions represented what was likely to become routine rather than exceptional.
The union leader’s call for action reflects broader European concerns about climate adaptation in educational settings, with student protesters in France recently demanding similar measures to improve classroom conditions during extreme weather.
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