Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, has called for comprehensive measures to help schools manage extreme heat conditions that have become more frequent in the UK. Following this summer’s severe heatwaves, which saw classroom temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius and forced hundreds of thousands of students to leave school early, education leaders are now advocating for significant systemic changes.
Kebede outlined several adaptations that schools might pursue to maintain educational continuity during hot periods. These suggestions include adjusting the school calendar by relocating holidays, modifying daily start and finish times to avoid peak heat hours, and moving examination schedules away from the hottest months. He emphasized that such discussions represent a necessary response to the reality of a rapidly warming climate, noting that educational systems in hotter countries already employ extended summer breaks to manage seasonal temperature variations.
The union leader stressed the urgent need for infrastructure investment, particularly a large-scale retrofit programme targeting school buildings. He noted that many UK educational facilities were constructed during the Victorian era or in the 1960s and 1970s, designs that fail to address contemporary climate conditions. Such a capital investment programme could simultaneously modernize schools to be “fit for the century we are living in” while generating skilled apprenticeships and employment opportunities.
Kebede warned that extreme heat events disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities, as students from deprived areas are often sent to inadequate home environments while their families lack flexibility to adjust work schedules. This disparity risks creating a two-tier system where wealthier schools manage heat challenges more effectively than those serving less affluent populations. The union leader characterized the level of professional distress among teachers during recent heatwaves as comparable to pandemic-era anxiety, with members expressing serious concerns about risks to both themselves and their students.
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