New School Hours, Longer Breaks: How French Schools Are Dealing With Heatwaves

Schools in France are making big changes to protect students from dangerous heat. With temperatures expected to reach 40°C (104°F), many schools have already started ending classes early and changing exam schedules. Last year, nearly 2,000 schools closed before the official start of summer break. The problem is getting worse because climate change is making heatwaves happen more often and get more intense across Europe.

For a long time, France didn't worry much about hot weather during the school year. That's because the worst heat usually hit in July and August — right when students were already on summer break. But that is starting to change. Climate change is causing high temperatures to arrive earlier in the year, even in May and June when students are still in school.

Europe has been warming up twice as fast as the rest of the world since the 1980s, according to a science group called the Copernicus Institute. A 2026 report from the European Climate and Health Observatory found that about 16,000 schools — mostly in southern Europe — already deal with days hotter than 30°C during the school year. If things don't change, that number could jump to 25 percent of all schools in Europe by the year 2100. France is expected to be one of the most affected countries.

One idea for dealing with the heat is to make summer vacation longer. Right now, French students get 56 days of summer break — much less than students in Spain, who get 77 days, or students in Italy, who get 97 days. France's summer break officially starts on July 4, which is later than in most southern European countries. Some people think adding June and September to the break could help students avoid the hottest months.

But even Italy's long summer break doesn't solve everything. In May of this year, a 12-year-old student in northern Italy had to go to the hospital because of heat-related illness at school. An Italian teachers' group called Anief asked for a longer summer break in September 2025 after a heatwave hit at the start of the school year. Their director, Marcello Pacifico, said, 'We cannot continue with an academic calendar from 50 years ago in the face of climate change.'

Not everyone agrees with making summer break longer, though. More than 76,000 people in Italy signed a petition to make summer break one month shorter. Many parents said a longer vacation is hard for families where both parents work. They worried about who would watch their children during the extra weeks off. Teachers and researchers also pointed out that being away from school for too long can hurt students — especially those who don't have safe or comfortable homes.

Another idea is to change the hours of the school day so students aren't in class during the hottest part of the afternoon. Italy already uses this approach — students have classes for five hours in the morning and are done by 1 or 2 p.m. Some parts of Spain are now trying something similar, with Madrid planning to move classes to cooler morning hours during heatwaves. In Andalucía, schools can let students go home early when it gets too hot, as long as parents agree.

A French town called Montélimar tried a new schedule in June 2024. Students started school at 8 a.m. instead of 8:30 a.m. and went home at 3 p.m. instead of 4:30 p.m., with lunch cut from two hours to one hour to make up the difference. Teachers mostly liked the new plan, but many parents found the earlier start difficult and felt their children didn't have enough time to eat a proper lunch. The experiment was not tried again.

Fatima Souchi, a head teacher at a primary school near Paris, said changing school hours is very complicated. 'It's a social issue,' she explained, pointing out that school hours currently match parents' work hours. She asked: if students finish school at 3 p.m., where will they go and who will pick them up? These are real problems that need real answers before any new schedule can work.

There is also a bigger problem: many school buildings in France are simply too old to handle the heat. Two-thirds of French schools were built before 1970, and they were not designed for today's hot weather. In school playgrounds, the asphalt can reach 50°C on a hot day. Souchi said her school only has one air conditioner in the courtyard and a few fans in classrooms, and experts agree that no matter which schedule changes are made, the buildings themselves also need to be updated to keep students and teachers safe.