When the thermometer climbs past 34 degrees, something has to give. For hundreds of schools across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland this week, that something was the school day itself.
Headteachers up and down the country announced closures or early finishes as temperatures soared to 34.6°C in Wisley, Surrey on Tuesday, making it one of the hottest days England has recorded this year. Scotland and Northern Ireland both logged their highest temperatures of 2025 on the same afternoon.
The decisions weren’t taken lightly. Many school buildings, particularly older Victorian-era primaries, simply weren’t built with heat in mind. No air conditioning, south-facing classrooms, flat roofs that turn into heat traps. Sitting a nine-year-old in a room pushing 30 degrees and expecting them to conjugate verbs is, at best, ambitious.
“We can’t guarantee a safe and comfortable learning environment when temperatures inside the classrooms are exceeding what we’d consider acceptable,” one headteacher in the East Midlands told local media, reflecting a sentiment echoed by dozens of colleagues across affected areas.
The UK has no legal upper limit for classroom temperatures. There’s a lower limit of 18°C, which schools must legally maintain in winter, but when it comes to heat, guidance is exactly that: guidance. The National Education Union has long pushed for a formal maximum, arguing that 30°C in a classroom is not a learning environment, it’s a sauna.
Parents had mixed reactions, as they tend to. Some appreciated the transparency and the early warning. Others scrambled for last-minute childcare, caught between jobs and an unexpected day off school with a restless eight-year-old who’s already bored by 9am.
The red heat alert issued by the Met Office covered large parts of England, with health officials urging people to stay out of direct sun between 11am and 3pm, check on elderly neighbours, and keep hydrated. Hospitals reported a rise in heat-related admissions.
It’s a situation that feels increasingly familiar. As summers in the UK grow hotter and more unpredictable, the question of how schools, workplaces, and public buildings adapt to a warmer climate is one that really can’t keep being kicked down the road.
