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Schools climate action guide and template

Resilience and adaptation

We are already experiencing the effects of climate change and need to be ready for these and future changes. Resilience and adaptation is about how we do this.

Resilience refers to how schools can cope with and recover from disruptions caused by climate change. This means continuing to operate whilst ensuring safety and wellbeing during climate events.

Adaptation is about how we change to cope with current and future climate impacts. This could relate to school practices, processes or infrastructure. For schools it means new measures to help climate change. Such as higher temperatures or increased rainfall and flooding. 

In London, climate change is making issues like overheating, flooding, and water scarcity worse. This is due to rising temperatures, intense rainfall, and water stress. The extreme weather seen in summer 2022, such as 40°C heatwaves, floods, and droughts, will become more common. These impacts are made worse by:

  • the urban heat island effect where buildings and roads absorb and re-emit the sun's heat more than natural landscapes
  • surfaces that don’t allow fluid to flow through which makes flooding worse
  • a growing and dense population which means we have high water demand
  • social inequalities

This means London’s buildings, infrastructure, environment and schools are increasingly under strain.

This means that resilience and adaptation in schools is very important. Measures can protect the safety, wellbeing, and continued education of students and staff. 

The key climate hazards affecting schools include heat risk, flooding, and water scarcity.

Heat risk

This is having more intense and more common heatwaves. This can cause:

  • physical heat stress
  • worse air quality
  • dehydration
  • worse learning environments

Flooding

Heavy rainfall and storms can lead to flash flooding. This can disrupt school operations and damage infrastructure. 

Water scarcity

Droughts and reduced rainfall can limit the availability of water. This can affect your school’s hygiene, sanitation, and safety.

Climate vulnerability

Climate vulnerability is a term used to describe how grave the impacts of climate change will be on someone or something. This can be applied to children, staff, buildings, schools, or communities. It is created by looking at social and physical conditions as well as what resources are available.

Children are more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Especially the very young and those with special needs or pre-existing health conditions. They rely on adults for guidance and may struggle to respond quickly to extreme weather. This can disrupt their learning and health.

For example, high indoor temperatures can worsen students' wellbeing and cognitive performance. As climate change gets worse, schools must plan to ensure the safety, health, and education of students and staff. Resilience and adaptation measures can reduce the costs of these in the long-term. Such as through maintenance costs and energy use.