Heatwave forces Staffordshire school closures

At least 13 schools in Staffordshire have been forced to close as a result of the hot weather.

The schools, mostly primaries based in the south of the county, shut on Wednesday either for the full day or from about midday, according to Staffordshire County Council.

All gave the extreme heat as the reason for closing and referred to the amber and red warnings issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

The closures came as temperatures continued to reach highs of more than 30C in the area, with the UKHSA issuing a red heat-health alert for parts of the West Midlands.

The schools listed on the county council's website, as of about 13:20 BST on Wednesday, were:

• Anna Seward Primary School, Lichfield
• Chadsmoor Community Infant and Nursery, Cannock
• Coton Green Primary School, Tamworth
• Dunstall Park Primary School, Tamworth
• Greysbrooke Primary School, Lichfield
• Norton Canes High School, Cannock
• Norton Canes Primary Academy, Cannock
• Scotch Orchard Primary School, Lichfield
• St Chad's CofE Primary School, Lichfield
• St Michael's CofE Primary School, Lichfield
• St Modwen's Catholic Primary School, Burton
• Two Gates Primary School, Tamworth
• William MacGregor Primary School, Tamworth

Meanwhile, a message on Stoke-on-Trent City Council's website said information on closures in its area can be found via schools' social media accounts or websites.

We are going to have to get used to coping with higher temperatures as a result of climate change, according to BBC West Midlands environment correspondent David Gregory-Kumar.

He said when he started in his role, heatwaves were the sort of thing we could expect with climate change, though we could not be sure it was the definite cause.

"Twenty-five years later, the science is very different," he added. "Not only can we say climate change is making this heatwave worse, scientists can say by how much."

He said studies from scientists at Climameter, a consortium of researchers that puts weather events in a climate change context, found it was making current weather patterns 2C to 4C warmer than what was typical in the 20th Century.

Gregory-Kumar said they found this out by searching records for previous similar weather events and comparing them to what was happening now.

"One worry is heat events like this week seem to be happening more often than models predicted," he added.

"It raises the prospect of the impact of climate change on us when it comes to intense heat being worse than we thought."

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