In May and June each year, hundreds of thousands of students across the country cram into sports halls and classrooms to sit high-stakes exams.
Temperatures during those months, when A levels Ի GCSEs are typically taken, have been soaring over the past 50 years - and are only expected to rise further.
Is it fair to expect young people to perform at their peak for crunch exams in such stifling conditions?
A senior climate change expert raised this question earlier this month, when the , which concluded that “weather records and extremes” are the UK’s new normal.
Commenting on the findings, Baroness Brown, chair of the Climate Change Committee’s Adaptation Committee, said: “Our children take the most important examinations of their lives at the hottest time of the year, often in very hot school halls with big plate-glass windows. Why do we make them do that in June?”
“Maybe they should do it at a different time of year, when they would be more productive and able to think better,” the former CEO of the Institute of Physics told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Exam students feel the heat
The Met Office report follows last month’s Department for Education which says that in schools an estimated 6.7 days of learning are already lost each year due to heat.
By 2050, some 8.2 days of learning could be lost, the researchers warn, rising to more than 11 days per year by 2100.
Students sitting exams in May 1980 did so in mean temperatures that were 2.5C lower than those felt by the 2025 cohort.
And the rise in temperatures is even more pronounced for June - with the daily average climbing by 3.5C since 1980, and maximum daily temperatures 4.3C higher in 2025.
How could this impact exam results? There is from academics at US universities Harvard, UCLA and Georgia State that even a 0.5C rise in average temperatures over a year equates to a 1 per cent drop in average exam scores.
Julie McCulloch, director of strategy and policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, says Baroness Brown makes “a good point” about the impact of rising heat on exam students.
“We certainly do need to think in general about how we maintain a reasonable temperature in exam halls,” she says.
Should exams be moved?
However, moving exams in the academic timetable “is fraught with difficulty”, she adds. For example, taking exams earlier in the school year could reduce the time available for study and exam preparation, “and then leave a long gap between students finishing exams and their onward progression”.
“That does not mean we shouldn’t consider changes, but it feels like something which is some way off and would need a great deal of thought,” McCulloch says.
But many exams do take place at other points throughout the year. GCSE resits for maths and English are in November. Others exams, including T levels, are held in December, while Btecs take place in January.
And the assessment system has not always been so heavily weighted towards the end of the school year.
In 2013, when he was education secretary, Michael Gove implemented reforms that shifted the system towards linear exams.
The previous modular system had given students “the option to take examinations at several points during the academic year - November, January, March Ի the summer”, points out Jugjit Chima, CEO of the National Association of Examinations Officers.
Schools making adjustments
It is also the case that schools are advised to be flexible in other ways when it comes to dealing with heat.
In December 2024, from the UK Health Security Agency stated that schools should “consider rearranging school start, finish and play times to avoid teaching during very hot conditions”.
However, Chima says his organisation has “not heard that [heat] has been a major issue” during this summer’s exam exams.
Because of the current linear structure of assessment, Chima sees “few options but to continue to assess students during the summer months to ensure that they are tested at the end of their course”.
There is also the question of whether moving exams to another point in the year could expose students to other weather-related problems.
Chima points to the example of the , which made more than 3,000 people temporarily homeless.
And shows that average annual rainfall in England has increased from around 800 millimetres a year from 1840 to the 1980s, to more than 900 millimetres in the 2020s.
The DfE’s research summary concludes that “many schools, especially secondary settings, are at risk” of flooding. Some 59 per cent of secondary school sites and 38 per cent of secondary buildings are deemed to be at high risk of surface water flooding.
The state of school buildings has become a high-profile problem, with teaching unions last year warning that teachers and pupils are “shivering” in winter and “overheating” in summer.
McCulloch says that “many school and college buildings are relatively old and are often too warm in the summer and too cold in the winter”.
So a revamp of the school calendar in itself may be insufficient to deal with the impact of climate change on students taking high-stakes assessments.
What is the DfE doing to help?
In June the on how schools should deal with heat, saying that leaders should “take any steps necessary to make sure children are safe and comfortable”.
Most pertinently for exams, these steps include a relaxation of uniform policy, encouraging students to drink more water than usual, “if possible” opening doors and windows for ventilation, and using mechanical fans. The guidance warns that mechanical fans should only be used if the temperature is below 35C because, above this temperature, they may not prevent heat-related illness and could exacerbate dehydration.
Air conditioning is not mentioned, despite the in 2021 listing it as a beneficial action.
McCulloch says: “As a nation, we need to show a greater sense of urgency over modernising the school and college estate, including investment in air-conditioning systems, and we need to deal with a huge maintenance backlog caused by years of underfunding.”
She recognises the current state of public finances but warns that “we have to be able to provide environments which are conducive to learning and to exams”.
Clearly, opening windows or using fans during exams could create challenges, such as noise.
James Bowen, assistant general secretary at the NAHT school leaders’ union, says that schools “need to be suitable for learning all year round”. “Extreme temperatures at either end of the scale are far from ideal and can make schools uncomfortable places to work and learn,” he adds.
New schools need to be built with climate change in mind and existing ones need to be adapted to mitigate the impact of weather extremes - and this requires more government investment, Bowen says.
A DfE spokesperson tells Tes: “Climate change is a universal issue and we are taking action to understand the potential impact on education so we can prevent disruption to learning.”
They point to the government’s 10-year infrastructure strategy, which includes around £20 billion to rebuild schools in England from 2025-26 to 2034-35. Another 250 schools will be selected for the School Rebuilding Programme in the next two years, on top of the more than 500 already selected.
The spokesperson says that these “will be schools for the future, net-zero carbon in operation and designed to withstand future climate risks, including increasing summertime temperatures”.
Capital maintenance and renewal funding is also set to rise from £2.4 billion in 2025-26 to £2.9 billion by 2034-35 to improve the condition of the school and college estate.
In 2021 the DfE estimated that schools in England faced a repair bill of around £11.4 billion. Unions have previously called for an extra £4 billion of investment per year.
The Joint Council for Qualifications says it understands that “high summer temperatures can be difficult for students sitting exams”.
It adds that schools can apply for special consideration and says that any alteration of the exam timetable “would have to be considered carefully and take into account a number of factors”.
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