North East Teachers call for better ventilation in schools as ‘open window’ policy doesn't work in winter
Last updated 7th Jan 2022
Teachers have today warned that the Government’s ‘open window’ guidance to improve ventilation and therefore reduce the risk of COVID transmissions in schools is unworkable in winter months.
A fifth (21%) of those polled expressed concern for the guidelines claiming they were ‘impractical’, with a quarter (25%) stating they caused more problems than they solved.
The policy dictates that windows should be opened in classrooms to ventilate the air and purge potential viruses.
But just a few days into the new term, three-quarters (74%) of education staff say they are disappointed in central and local government for failing to find a better solution for air purification.
The independent research, commissioned by phs – an organisation leading a major study into pollution and air quality in schools – also found a fifth (21%) of teachers do not understand or are not familiar with the Government’s open window policy.
Implementing the open window policy isn’t even possible for over a quarter (27%) who shockingly work in classrooms where windows cannot be opened.
Nine in 10 education staff said there was between one and 10 rooms in their school with windows that couldn’t be opened.
A quarter (24%) say the policy also causes more viruses due to students and teachers being cold, causing further absenteeism.
In fact, half (50%) say they currently have more staff off than ever before.
As a result, almost 70% of school staff voiced concern about being put at risk of COVID infection, with a quarter saying that regulating COVID in classrooms during the winter months will be difficult to manage.
More than half of educators (58%) gloomily predict there will have to be a return to former measures and disruption if better ventilation and air purification systems aren’t put in place.
Jo Waddle from the National Education Union in the North East tell us the Government have to do more as the current measures aren't workable:
"We've had snow this morning so to say the answer to the problem to this problem is to open a window is just ridiculous. I'm a farther and a grandfather and I wouldn't want my kids sitting in a classroom freezing. The truth is this shouldn't have been sorted last year! We've been in the pandemic since 2020 there should of been a massive injection of money to provide schools with the ventilation systems they needed. Whether the Government like it our not we're in northern hemisphere it's a temperate climate and in the winter it get very very cold."
Professor Paul Linden, an expert on the role of ventilation in the airborne transmission of Covid-19 said:
“We know that poor ventilation increases the risk of infection. Covid is spread through airborne particles that can be filtered from the air and removed by introducing more fresh air.
Opening windows is just the first step, and we have to ask ourselves how practical this is, and how much responsibility we can put on teachers. We can’t expect teachers to be ventilation experts, so the best answer has to be a combination of solutions that suits each individual classroom."