As the weather has cooled over the past month, teachers and students have been forced to sit in freezing classrooms. School heating systems have been found to be ineffective when the windows are open, due to the heat escaping and more cold air coming in. This puts pupils in an uncomfortable environment and inevitably impacts learning. In London, the average maximum temperature is 11.1 degrees, and in December this drops to 9 degrees. In winter mornings temperatures often reach below 5 degrees.
Due to Covid-19, The government has said that windows should be open in classrooms for ventilation to reduce transmission indoors, however, this also means classrooms are being left with low temperatures in the cold months.
The main way in which school children and teachers can protect themselves from heat loss is through wearing extra layers, for example, coats, hats, cloves or bringing in blankets. However, some schools are not allowing children to wear coats because it is a distraction to learning. However, research has proven that workers that are cold are less productive. If a classroom is too cold, you are likely to feel more isolated, lonely, depressed and distracted. Surely school uniform policies could be relaxed in these circumstances, especially when they seem to be counter productive. A study at Loyola University found that air temperature has an impact on memory ability. Randomly selected students participated in memory tests in rooms with varying temperatures. The results showed that in rooms with temperatures below 17.8 degrees and above 26.7 degrees memory was impacted negatively. Test scores were crucially higher in the room which was 22.2 degrees.
At the moment the minimum legal classroom temperature is only 16 degrees, however the NEU teaching union has lobbied for the minimum temperature to be increased to 18C. At an American high school 16.1 degrees, students averaged a score of 76%. However, at 22.2 degrees, students averaged a score at 90%.
A lower skin temperature has a tendency to cause discomfort. Many children will respond to this by fidgeting. This will be another distraction and will hinder learning, eventually leading to lower performances from children
