LONDON (AP) — When temperatures shattered records across Europe this past June, a Welsh school where teacher Mark Morris works was among hundreds across the United Kingdom forced to shut its doors.
With no air conditioning or fans available, and sunlight pouring through windows that barely open — some not at all — Morris said holding his design and technology classes was simply not possible when temperatures in Wales reached a record 35.9 degrees Celsius (96.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
“Even in a normal summer, the heat on those south-facing windows becomes unbearable,” said Morris, who teaches high school students subjects like woodworking and food preparation. “If there’s anything that you need to turn the oven on, you can forget about it. There’s no way anybody could carry on.”
Over 1,000 schools in the U.K. shut down for multiple days or released children early during the late June heat event, which toppled temperature records across the continent. The closures disrupted education and created economic ripple effects as parents with jobs scrambled to arrange childcare.
Experts say the widespread school closures have laid bare just how ill-equipped Britain is to handle what climate scientists now describe as a “new normal” — more frequent and more severe heat waves. Aging public buildings such as schools, hospitals, and care homes are among the hardest hit. Air conditioning is rarely found in these structures, and poor ventilation causes indoor temperatures to become dangerously stifling.
The British government’s own climate advisers noted in a recent report that these buildings were “built for a climate that no longer exists today” — designed to retain heat during cold winters, not to stay cool during extended stretches of extreme warmth.
At schools that remained open during the June heat wave, students and staff turned to low-tech workarounds: small handheld fans, water spray bottles, and cold popsicles replacing hot lunches. Blinds were pulled shut, and some people lay on the floor in the dim light — the coolest spot available. A few even soaked their bare feet in buckets of water.
Even so, with roughly 30 people packed into each classroom, conditions could quickly become a health risk.
“We’ve had members teaching in extremely hot conditions, to the extent that we’ve had reports of members passing out in classrooms while trying to teach,” said Wayne Bates, a health and safety spokesperson with the teachers’ union NASUWT.
Bates’ organization, along with other unions, has long pushed the British government to establish a maximum allowable workplace temperature. He noted that many school buildings constructed between the 1950s and 1970s have far outlived their intended lifespan, and that four out of five schools still have asbestos embedded in their structures — making it difficult to retrofit air conditioning systems.
Dave Woods, a head teacher at Beaconsfield Primary School in west London, pointed out that newer construction is not necessarily better. The newer section of his school, built just about a decade ago, actually performs worse in the heat than the original building constructed in 1908. He said the older structure benefits from high ceilings and thick brick walls that naturally keep it cooler.
“You would have thought in 2017, there would have been more thinking ahead because we already knew about changes to climate, changes to global temperatures,” said Woods, who also serves as vice president of the National Union of Headteachers.
Woods is exploring the possibility of adding air conditioning to portions of the campus, but tight finances are a major obstacle. He said U.K. schools have been chronically underfunded for more than a decade, with government funding slashed during austerity measures in the 2010s and never restored. His school now receives just 7,000 pounds (about $9,348) annually for repairs.
That falls well short of what’s needed, given that outfitting the school with air conditioning could run close to 20,000 pounds (roughly $26,700) — and pressing problems like leaking roofs also demand attention.
“We’re already looking at some longer-term things, like more tree planting to provide shade onto buildings, external screening onto windows or use of solar film to reflect some of the glare,” Woods said. “But nothing’s going to happen extremely quickly.”
The Climate Change Committee, an independent advisory body to the British government, warned in a May report that by 2050, with approximately 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, heat waves in southern England could routinely surpass 40 C (104 F). Without action, the number of days per year when indoor temperatures in thousands of English schools could reach 35 C is projected to rise by 70% compared to current levels, resulting in more lost school days and declining educational outcomes.
The committee recommended starting with low-cost “passive cooling” methods such as window blinds and external shading, but said that schools, care homes, and hospitals most at risk should have air conditioning installed within the next 25 years — ideally using low-carbon systems like heat pumps capable of both heating and cooling.
Richard Millar, the committee’s director of adaptation, stressed that investment must begin now.
“Our key message overall is that the effects being felt now, when we think about heat particularly, this isn’t something that we’ve historically thought about as one of the key hazards from weather or from climate change in the U.K.,” Millar said. “We increasingly need to think about heat as the evidence of the last few weeks shows us. And this is one of areas where we have a gap in terms of a proper plan for how this is led, particularly about the public services side of it.”
“It’s not just a future problem. Those impacts are here,” Millar added. “And we’re not prepared for today’s weather, let alone tomorrow’s.”
