33C in the Classroom

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Teaching Series

  • Mar 01, 2023 - 33C in the Classroom

Sometimes you can feel like a broken record, but, every February in Christchurch it gets hot. Like 30C and over. Now, that temperature is one thing when you’ve built buildings and lifestyles around it. Here, we have not.

The school I teach at has a wide variety of buildings. Some are brand new, well-insulated and climate controlled, while others get both too hot in summer and too cold in winter, with very little to help them either way. Ultimately, some classrooms end up being over 30C while also filled with 30 students trying to do some work. This is not good for students or teachers. They don’t do their best work, and neither do we.

The temperature in my classroom one afternoon.
(📷: Finn Le Sueur) The temperature in my classroom one afternoon.

You can ask school management about this, but ultimately they don’t have the budget to fit out each school with heat pumps or other air conditioning. It simply costs too much and the government doesn’t provide enough funds for the installation, the maintenance, or the ongoing electricity costs for 100 heat pumps in a large school.

It’s time for the Government to step up and fund schools adequately. It’s time for them to do the right thing for their rangatahi. It’s time for them to provide a safe and comfortable working environment.

The Letter

Find your member of parliament here.

Then find your local MP. Mine in Christchurch Central are:

Dear Hon Chris Hipkins, Hon Jan Tinetti, Hon Kelvin Davis, <Your MPs Here>,

I am writing to you today to encourage you to improve the funding given to schools for capital works such as retrofitting air conditioning units in classrooms.

Many classrooms are old and do not have suitable climate control or insulation. This leads to them becoming both too hot and too cold during the extremes of the year. This year, on at least one occasion, my classroom registered 33.1C on the inside. When I asked my school what they could do about it, they replied that there was not enough funding to fit out all classrooms with air conditioners. Secondary to this, there is not enough funding for schools to pay maintenance or electricity costs for such a large number of air conditioners.

This is simply not good enough. Classrooms with 30 students and a teacher, in a temperature of over 30C is unsafe. Students do not do their best work in those conditions, and neither do teachers. It is time for this to change!

Please, on behalf of the rangatahi who are to be the future of this country, give them the best environment possible to learn and become leaders of the next generation.

Ngā mihi maioha,

Nā, <Your Name Here>