Rising classroom temperatures risk children’s health

Climate change campaigners says political leaders need to ensure the country is better prepared for more extreme weather and must address the root cause — fossil fuel pollution

Children and teachers are being forced to work in uncomfortably hot classrooms as climate change drives up temperatures, according to an investigation by climate campaign group, Round Our Way.

Sensors placed in classrooms in seven schools in England recorded hourly temperatures for four weeks, including the late-June heatwave in which the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued yellow heat-health alerts for eight regions.

Data revealed classrooms in six schools breached 26°C, the maximum indoor working temperature advised by the National Education Union. Cambridgeshire saw the highest peak classroom temperature, 29.6°C on 26^thJune, followed by West Sussex at 28.3°C and Suffolk at 28.2°C.

Roger Harding, Director of Round Our Way said, “This data reveals the worryingly hot temperatures our children are starting to face in the classroom thanks to climate change. Hard pressed teachers have told us about children this summer who have fainted or even vomited due to the high heat, and there are many more who simply struggle to concentrate.”

Dr Helena Clements, Officer for Climate Change, Royal College of Paediatric and Child Health said, “Young children are especially vulnerable to heat-related illness. They are less able to regulate their temperatures than adults, making them susceptible to dehydration, heat stroke and exhaustion. We cannot let extreme heat become the norm. To protect their health and ensure a future with safe, liveable temperatures, we must accelerate our efforts to mitigate and adapt to the changing climate.”

"We now need our political leaders to ensure the country is better prepared for more extreme weather and tackle the fossil fuel pollution that is causing it in the first place.”

Harding added, “Schools, like many of our buildings, are not equipped to deal with the higher temperatures caused by climate change. We now need our political leaders to ensure the country is better prepared for more extreme weather and tackle the fossil fuel pollution that is causing it in the first place.”

Professor Stephen Emmitt, Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, University of Bath has published research on this topic. He said: “Designing buildings that keep the heat in during the colder months has unwittingly created buildings that can overheat in the summer, which includes school classrooms in the UK…understanding which classrooms tend to overheat and which are less likely to…can be instrumental in planning classroom use to try to mitigate the issue.”

Oliver Neve, Climate Resilience Consultant at global engineering consultancy, Ramboll said classrooms can be made more comfortable by using external shading to limit solar gain through windows and facades, reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the internal structure, use of green roofs and green walls to combat higher temperatures, and controlling the internal environment with air conditioning.

“However, we do not want to worsen climate change with increased carbon emissions from higher energy consumption and so ideally any air conditioning solution should be implemented alongside renewable energy sources,” said Neve.

Rising temperatures are here to stay; the State of the Climate 2023 report from the Royal Meteorological Society reported that 2023 was the second warmest year on record for the UK in the series from 1884, with only 2022 warmer. It also concluded that UK temperature extremes are changing much faster than average, and that the UK's record warm year of 2022 and unprecedented July heatwave were made more likely by climate change.