Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, has urged the government to implement comprehensive measures to help schools adapt to the UK’s rising temperatures. He outlined several proposals in response to the impact of extreme heat on educational facilities and student learning this summer.
Kebede called for a mass retrofitting programme targeting school buildings, arguing that many educational facilities were constructed during periods of cooler climate conditions and lack adequate infrastructure to withstand high temperatures. He noted that many UK schools are housed in Victorian-era buildings or structures built in the 1960s and 1970s, neither of which were designed to handle the extreme heat now becoming common. A major capital building programme, he suggested, could modernize schools while creating employment opportunities.
Beyond physical infrastructure improvements, Kebede advocated for structural changes to the academic calendar and schedule. These include adjusting school start and finish times, reorganizing holiday periods, extending the summer break similar to practices in hotter countries, and relocating examinations away from the warmest months. He emphasized the need for a national discussion about how education systems could maintain continuity amid rapid climate change.
The union leader highlighted the severity of conditions during recent heatwaves, when classroom temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, leading to school closures and widespread disruption. At least 760,000 schoolchildren in England and Wales missed lessons during the June heatwave, resulting in the loss of more than 15 million hours of instruction time. Teachers reported that learning was nearly impossible, with students experiencing headaches, nausea, and behavioral deterioration.
Kebede warned that the burden of extreme heat was falling disproportionately on disadvantaged communities, where children often returned to inadequate home environments and parents faced limited work flexibility. He cautioned that without intervention, schools in more affluent areas would gain advantages in coping with heat, creating a two-tier educational system.
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