Not cool at school: Europe’s classrooms struggle with the heat

LONDON/PARIS/MADRID, June 25 - At break time on Wednesday at the Harris Primary Academy Mayflower in Chafford Hundred, just east of London, children sucked on ice lollies and splashed about in paddling pools to cool down.

"I feel more cool and airy," Advikhaa, 11, said of the special measures, which also include allowing children to swap their school uniforms for lighter clothing, that aim to make the high temperatures easier to bear.

While her school has found short-term fixes to alleviate the heat, thousands of others across Europe have resorted to sending pupils home during the deadly, record-breaking heatwave gripping the continent.

With such episodes becoming more frequent and intense, many schools are not able to adequately protect children from the heat.

Around 1,000 schools across England and Wales have shuttered or shortened the school day, while authorities said attendance had dropped at those remaining open as parents keep children at home. French Education Minister Edouard Geffray said that 13,500 schools were closed or placed on special schedules on Thursday due to the heat.

BRITISH TEACHERS PASSING OUT IN CLASS

Relatively few schools in Europe are equipped with air conditioning systems, leaving classrooms sweltering as temperatures peak.

British teaching union NASUWT said several of its members passed out in class on Tuesday when temperatures rose to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in certain classrooms particularly exposed to the sun.

"Schools are simply not equipped to deal with these kinds of temperatures," said Wayne Bates, NASUWT's national lead for health and safety.

Teachers in France were resorting to makeshift solutions to mitigate the heat. Some taped emergency blankets to windows or used screwdrivers to pry open those stuck shut and brought their own fans and misting sprays to school, said Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of SNES-FSU, the main union representing French middle and high school staff.

High classroom temperatures have a direct impact on learning, researchers have found. A 2019 study published in the journal Building and Environment concluded that lowering the temperature of a classroom from 30 C to 20 C improved performance by 20%.

Paul-Emile Perret-Porret, 17, a high school student in Paris, said his parents booked an air-conditioned hotel room for him the night before his baccalauréat — France's critical school-leaving exam — so he could get a good night's sleep.

"If you can't sleep the night before the exam, the heat makes it even worse. So it's great to spend the night in air conditioning and be in good shape," he said.

Traditionally, Southern Europe has more experience handling summer heat. Most schools in Spain shift to a half-day in June and September to avoid the afternoon heat. Spain, Greece and Italy also break for the holidays in mid-June, earlier than schools in European countries further north.

But longer holidays can exacerbate social inequalities with some families unable to afford childcare, entertainment or ways to protect children from extreme heat, said Désirée Zaugg, a child rights specialist at UNICEF in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Northern Europe has been moving in the other direction, with governments seeking to distribute holiday time more evenly throughout the year. In 2017, the French government moved the start of the holidays to the first week of July from the end of June.

With more heatwaves now coming as early as May or even April, many schools in Southern Europe are also looking for further solutions to the heat.

60 C IN SEVILLE SCHOOLYARDS

Thermal cameras installed by Greenpeace in Spanish schools recorded surface temperatures as high as 35 C in classrooms in Madrid and 60 C in schoolyards in Seville.

In Barcelona, city authorities have raised €100 million ($114 million) from a tourist tax to equip about 170 schools and education centres with air conditioning by 2030.

Parents at CEIP Unamuno school in Madrid protested outside the local town hall earlier this month after learning a bid it won last year to install air conditioning and fans as well as shade in schoolyards was allocated to replace windows at another school.

France has 6,200 projects under way to mitigate heat in schools as part of €800 million allocated for spending on climate adaptation.

But air conditioning cannot be "the be-all and end-all" of adapting schools, said Vénétitay, and French unions have been speaking to their Southern European counterparts about solutions.

Those options include adding plants to schoolyards and installing window filters, which can lower temperatures by 4 C, she said. Exam times may need to be limited to mornings during heatwaves, she added.

But with France experiencing its hottest day on record this week, sometimes the safest solution is to send pupils home, Thierry Pajot, president of the School Principals' Union, told FranceInfo.

"I do not want to hear that a student or staff member has died because of the heatwave," he said. REUTERS