Sweltering Cities spoke with Anjana, a teacher at an intensive English centre in western Sydney. Anjana primarily teaches students refugee and migrant backgrounds. In her own words, she describes the importance of communicating heat health information to students who have newly arrived to Australia:
Teaching is really frustrating when there’s a heatwave. The students do not listen, are unsettled, and quickly become agitated. Our school now has extra rooms with air conditioning, but before this, it was unbearable to teach in classrooms that had no cooling. We need to change our classes to make sure students stay safe during hot weather, for example, by doing less strenuous activities in our physical education lessons.
We have had multiple cases of students getting heat stroke, so it’s really important that all teachers know how to quickly respond and perform first aid. On our school development days, we always go over our heatwave plans which cater to the diverse backgrounds of our students. We have heat safety plans for students who wear the hijab or who may be fasting.
Our school has more cases than normal of students getting heat stroke because students who have newly-arrived to Australia are often not aware of heatwave risks in Australia. We provide water bottles to all of our new enrolments, give students ice-blocks during hot weather, and recently were able to install more shaded areas through some government funding. We also run specific sun and water safety programs during the hotter school terms. It’s really important that our students know to use sunscreen to prevent sunburn, or how to identify and stay safe if there’s a rip in the water as these are risks that may not be common in their home country.
In my classes, I tell students to go with their families to the shopping centre or library during the summer so they can stay cool, especially if they do not have air conditioning at home. The library is a great option for students because they run a summer reading competition. Water parks, like the one in Nurragingy Reserve in Doonside, are another fun activity for students and their families to stay cool during heatwaves. As teachers, especially in a school like mine, it’s crucial that we communicate heatwave safety measures to students as best as possible so that they can stay protected during the summer.
