A new study finds that the June heatwave forces many schools in the UK to shut early or close completely, leading to large losses in classroom time. Across the affected period, pupils miss more than 15 million hours of teaching.
The research reports that at least 760,000 children in England and Wales miss lessons because of heat-related closures. It also says that more than 1,700 schools either close or finish early during the heatwave, which occurred as part of a wider summer of extreme temperatures. Some classrooms experience very high indoor temperatures, with figures cited as topping 40C, contributing to heat stress symptoms among pupils and staff.
Outlets align on the overall scale of missed teaching time and the number of affected pupils and schools, though they vary slightly in the emphasis—some foreground the total hours lost, while others focus more on the number of children affected and reported classroom temperature conditions.
