AIR-conditioning in schools and changes to timetables aren’t an easy response to adapting to hotter summers, a councillor has said.
Record temperature in June, when parts of South Wales were subject to a red warning for extreme heat, saw hundreds of schools across the region close.
Blaenavon Councillor Janet Jones asked if air conditioning in schools as well as changing the times of the school day could be considered as a response and an adjustment to rising temperatures rather than closing schools.
Councillor Richard Clark, Torfaen Borough Council’s cabinet member for education, said schools may not be suited to to air conditioning units while changing the school day would require a number of considerations.
The Labour councillor air conditioning would also come with increase energy costs, and be at odds with the council’s efforts to tackle climate change and reduce emissions, but said shade and ventilation are considered in the design of new school buildings.
“The question of changing school opening hours may be worth considering,” said Cllr Clark who said that would still need to look at school staff, childcare and the practical implications for families. He said any changes would require consultation if they were to be taken forward.
Cllr Clark also said the health and safety and wellbeing of pupils was always the priority for headteachers when they have to consider whether they should close a school and they would also consider wider safeguarding and wellbeing concerns as some vulnerable pupils benefit from the structure of the school day.
The Croesyceiliog councillor said schools had adapted to online learning during the pandemic and added: “I think I said during Covid there’s no such [thing] as a snow day anymore, this is the other extreme.”