It started, as these things often do, with an email.
A school in England, facing a run of very hot days and a national heat alert, wrote to parents to set out its expectations. There were some adjustments – small ones – but the overall message was clear: standards would hold, routines would remain, and any loosening of uniform would need to be carefully controlled. There was also an implication, lightly but unmistakably put, that where uniform had been relaxed in the past, behaviour had slipped.
For one parent reading it, that last point stuck.
It was not unreasonable, and quite understandable. After all, schools are under constant pressure to ‘hold the line’. However, for one parent it raised a subtle but more unsettling question:
What if we’ve got the cause wrong?
What if the issue in a heatwave isn’t what pupils are wearing, but what the conditions are doing to them? Because if the diagnosis is off, even slightly, then the response can be too. It can be misplaced, or at least not quite aimed at the thing that’s actually driving the difficulty. It is almost certain that the school was acting in good-faith albeit stoicly. But whether intentional or not, the parent was pertrubed by the lack of instutional honesty.
So they wrote back.
There was no anger and no desire to score points. Instead it was to hold that question in the open a little longer, and to ask whether a different way of seeing the situation might lead to a shift in awareness.
What follows is that reply.
Dear Headteacher,
I just wanted to come back to you following the message that went out to parents about the heat this week. But before anything else, I do want to say that I appreciate that the school has made some adjustments. I know from experience how complex it is to manage a secondary school at the best of times, let alone when you’ve got unusually high temperatures, exams, staffing pressures – all of that happening at once. So please rest assured that this isn’t written lightly or without that awareness.
But I think there’s something in the way this has been framed that’s made me pause. In particular, the suggestion – whether explicitly or implicitly – that when uniform expectations are relaxed, behaviour deteriorates. I can understand why that might feel true in the moment. When things shift, when routines loosen slightly, it can look and feel like things are becoming less settled. However I just want to gently question whether that’s actually what’s going on. Because when you look at the evidence around uniform itself, it’s not especially strong. There isn’t really a solid base that says uniform, in and of itself, improves behaviour, or attainment, or attendance in a clear and consistent way. It may contribute to a wider sense of culture or belonging, but it’s not a particularly reliable lever on its own.
Where the evidence is much clearer is on heat. Regardless of the consistent and robust evidence that shows the impact of excessive heat on both the human body and mind, we’ve all experienced for ourselves at some point that when temperatures rise, people find it harder to concentrate, harder to regulate themselves, more uncomfortable, more irritable. That’s true for adults, and it’s just as true, if not more so, for young people. And in a school environment, that plays out in all the ways you would expect: attention dips, patience runs thinner, small things escalate more quickly.
So I think the question I keep coming back to is this: are we possibly attributing the cause to the wrong thing?
Because if behaviour feels more difficult during hot weather, the more obvious explanation isn’t what pupils are wearing. It’s that they’re hot. And thirsty. And uncomfortable. And trying to function in an environment that their bodies aren’t really suited to. As someone with extensive experience in the education sector I can appreciate that’s not a small thing. It actually sits right at the heart of learning.
I also just want to touch on the point about water, because that stood out to me as well. The emphasis on pupils accessing water at social times rather than during lessons makes sense in a normal week. But in conditions like this, hydration isn’t a peripheral issue. It’s one of the main ways we actually help children stay well enough to learn at all. Speak to any member of staff who is first aid trained, or perhaps look back at a memory to a parent or grandparent, who would tell you if you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. If a pupil is sitting in a warm classroom, slightly dehydrated, trying to concentrate, then that’s not really a behaviour management issue if they become distracted or unsettled. That’s a physiological one.
And I think that distinction matters because it changes how we respond. None of this is about saying that expectations shouldn’t exist, or that standards should drop. I absolutely believe in structure, consistency, clear boundaries – all of that. But I also think those things only work in the long term if they’re responsive to context. And the context is changing.
Periods of heat like this aren’t as unusual as they used to be. They’re becoming something schools are going to have to navigate more regularly, and that does mean thinking a bit differently about what “normal” practice looks like when the temperature gets beyond a certain point. Schools need to avoid a ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ where what would once have prompted adaptation is gradually normalised, and expectations stay the same even as the conditions themselves have changed. Because what works at 20°C doesn’t necessarily work at 30°C, and will almost certainly not work at 40°C or beyond. And if we try to hold everything else constant – uniform, routines, expectations – without fully adapting to the conditions, then the pressure tends to show up somewhere else. Often in behaviour. Often in wellbeing. Often in staff and pupil frustration. And that can then be misread as something else.
I’m sharing all of this in a constructive spirit. I’m very aware that none of these decisions are easy, and I don’t think there’s a perfect answer here. But I do think it’s worth reflecting on how we’re understanding what’s happening, because that then shapes what we do next. From my side, I’d really welcome a conversation about this – more broadly than just this week. Around heat, uniform, hydration, and how schools can adapt more proactively to these conditions going forward. It’s something I’ve worked on quite closely, and I think there’s a real opportunity for schools to get ahead of this rather than dealing with it reactively each time.
So please do feel free to get in touch if that would be useful. I’d be very happy to come in and talk this through.
Thank you again for everything you and your team are doing this week.
Kind regards,
A parent
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