Every year countless children are faced with sitting in stuffy classrooms, with no air conditioning, quite often they are not allowed to remove or change parts of they're uniform in extreme heat conditions.
Many of those children end up with heat exhaustion, dehydrated, which leads heat stroke.
Currently in the UK there is no temperature set for schools where they have the option to close schools down in extreme heat. Currently the National education union (NEU) states an ideal temp of 26•c that schools should close, but there is no legal requirement set by government as yet. The decision lays at the discretion of individual schools. Many don't close at all and some close when temperatures are reaching close to 30•c, effectively children are sitting in the same conditions as sitting in a hot car all day (remember temperatures are often higher in unconditioned, poorly ventilated areas). It has been proven the brain works far to it's normal capacity in extreme temperatures such as heat and cold so why put our kids through extreme heat days at school?
In Europe many schools (and businesses) shut down during the day for siestas when temperatures are too hot and they return to school early evening when temperatures are cooler
We wouldn't put up with this for animals being left in cars, with little to no ventilation... so why would we allow our children to face similar conditions and still be expected to work and be educated and function in stuffy conditions.
Please sign and lets get this changed for all pupils for all of our children.
