El Niño is coming - are international schools ready?

“Lima is a desert and it never rains,” says Simon Porter, executive head of St George’s College, an international school in the Peruvian capital.

Many buildings in Lima - including the three campuses that Porter runs - are therefore “not built for rain”, in that they have flat roofs unsuitable for heavy downpours.

Usually that’s not a problem, but recent unexpectedly high rainfall has left Porter dealing with leaking roofs. The unusual precipitation has also caused “havoc” more broadly, he says, with roads flooding because there is “no drainage” in the city.

This bodes ill given the warnings of much-increased rainfall for South American countries like Peru linked to this year’s El Niño climate phenomenon, which is expected to - and in some cases has already started to - unleash extreme weather across South America, Africa and much of Asia.

The dangers of El Niño

Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, says the situation is “unprecedented” and “could bring the biggest upheaval in global weather for a thousand years or more”, with “catastrophic” consequences “for many parts of the world”.

“An El Niño-related death toll of 450,000 people has been predicted for the next six months, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was much higher,” he tells Tes.

Given this, Hayley Fowler, professor of climate change impacts at Newcastle University, says schools in affected countries need to brace for the worst: “[Leaders should be] particularly concerned about extreme heat, flooding and landslides, drought and water shortages, wildfire and smoke, and disruption to transport, power and other infrastructure.” (See our box below for advice on how to prepare)

It is an intimidating list of potential threats that could persist for some time, with El Niño expected to last until February 2027.

For some, the impact has already started. Principal Ian Clayton, of The British School in Tokyo, has had to guide his school through Typhoon Dujuan, which reports said had been made “more intense by the ‘super El Niño’”.

Clayton and his team took the decision to close the school on the day of the storm (21 September), giving as much warning as possible to families.

Ultimately, he says, the arrangements went smoothly and there was no significant damage to the school.

Clayton notes, however, that such incidents are no longer “exceptional one-off events”- earlier in the month, on 7 September, the school was also forced to close along with thousands of others in Japan due to torrential rain.

“Whether it is extreme heat, unusually intense rainfall or typhoons, school leaders have to think about resilience rather than simply responding to individual incidents,” he says.

Rainfall and drought

Another leader confronting this reality is Dr Celeste Engler, head of Brent International School in Baguio in the Philippines, which was forced to delay the start of the new academic year because of heavy rainfall.

“Our ‘open house’ was cancelled, the first day of classes was delayed and students were only able to begin settling properly into their school routines after several disruptions,” she says.

Then - just a few days later - in-person learning had to be suspended because of continuing heavy rainfall.

The school moved to online learning but it was a far from ideal start to the new school year and, with El Niño also expected to increase the likelihood of drought, the challenges seem set to continue.

In Kenya, at the Light Group of Schools, which runs international schools in Nairobi, Mombasa and Malindi, there is also a focus on “practical preparation”, says Ildar Iliazov.

He says the main concern “is not simply the rainfall itself, but the knock-on effect on school operations” - because of flooding, traffic disruption and potential water contamination.

“We are looking at drainage, roofs and vulnerable infrastructure, transport routes, emergency communication procedures, water and hygiene risks, and the possibility of adapting timetables or moving learning online if physical attendance becomes difficult,” he says.

The scale of the potential impact is why John Gwyn Jones, CEO of the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA), says schools in his region are increasingly seeing these issues as an inherent challenge, rather than exceptional one-off events.

“There is certainly a growing awareness among our member schools of the wider challenges presented by climate change and increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather patterns,” he says.

“Recent flooding in several Asian countries, for example, has had a significant impact on communities, while serious air pollution caused by seasonal burning continues to affect a number of countries in our region.”

Systemic risk

It’s a sentiment shared by Rachel Mitchell, head of environmental, social and governance at International Schools Partnership (ISP), which runs more than 100 schools across 25 countries. She says schools need to stop thinking about climate risks “as an occasional operational issue” and instead as something that must be “considered systematically”.

“It’s really an educational issue because it affects our ability to offer continuity of learning if our students and staff aren’t safe or if they can’t safely access the campus.”

For instance, she notes that research carried out in 2024-25 found that by 2050, every ISP site will face high impact from at least one hazard, with three hazards standing out: heavy rain (91 per cent of sites), heatwaves (86 per cent) and wildfires (40 per cent).

In the next few weeks, Mitchell expects to get the results of a further study looking at “the investment we need to make so that our sites will be prepared.”

Cognita has also said that a focus on sustainable design and infrastructure is a core aspect of its environmental, social and governance work going forward, as well as adapting school buildings to reduce emissions and improve sustainable energy use.

Back in Lima, Porter is looking to adapt the school’s buildings, not just to counter the impact of more rain but to try to improve its currently limited amount of air conditioning.

Previously it wasn’t needed, he says, but more recently the early days of the school year have been “unbearable” at times, he says.

Impact on exams

The long summer break provides some respite from the heat for schools in Lima - with everybody making for the beach to cool off over January and February - but the return to class in March and April “can be sticky”, Porter says.

He is right to be concerned, McGuire says, as he notes that El Niño is likely to cause “a huge amount of extra heat [to be] added to the atmosphere - contributing to 2027 almost certainly being the hottest year on record”.

Mitchell at ISP also raises the issue of “the [period] of extreme heat is getting larger and larger”, and says this could certainly impact schools, with campuses that have traditionally not needed air conditioning requiring it now.

It is also worth thinking about the impact that this longer period of hot weather could have on exams, she says, given that these tend to coincide with the start of warmer weather.

“The window of heat getting wider means it encompasses that end-of-term period when there are exams. How does that affect your ability to perform if you can’t sleep at night? Or how does it affect your ability to study?”

This is a challenge that Porter raises in Peru, too, saying he is already concerned about how hot it could be in November when the students - studying on a Southern Hemisphere timetable - sit their International Baccalaureate exams.

Of course, some modern international schools may well avoid this issue because they have been built using modern construction techniques.

Paresh Thakrar, managing director of Wellington College International, explains that most Wellington College international schools were constructed within the past 10 years and so heat monitoring, climate control and air purifiers are standard.

Still, this does not preclude day-to-day operations having to be adapted to take account of the weather. For instance, timetables might be modified if it’s too hot to go outside or the air quality is poor, he says.

Snakes on a playground

Changes in the weather can also affect the natural ecosystem around school sites.

Nigel Fossey, master at Wellington College International Pune, in India, says the monsoon has caused it to double its mosquito fogging - a practice whereby a fine mist of insecticide is sprayed in a bid to reduce the mosquito population - to twice a day. And “snake activity”, which increases during wetter weather, has also required a response.

“As is common in many parts of India, wildlife activity can increase following periods of heavy rainfall (a number of snakes have been reported in the local area) and this forms part of our routine site management planning and risk management procedures (especially during break times and outdoor play),” he says.

Perhaps the most widespread issue in Asia from El Niño so far, though, has been around air quality, with several countries impacted by smoke from wildfires - a problem that Sam Gipson, principal of Kinabalu International School in Malaysian Borneo, has had experience of due to fires in Indonesian Borneo that have been blazing for months, with the “super El Niño” intensifying.

“During the first few weeks of this academic year, more than half of our school weeks required some form of adjustment because of haze. That might mean restricting outdoor activity, moving break times indoors or changing arrival and dismissal arrangements.”

Angelina Tee, chief executive of Taylor’s Schools, meanwhile, also references the “severe haze” in Singapore and Malaysia caused by the seasonal burning from neighbouring countries and exacerbated by the high heat and limited rainfall.

“This meant many outdoor activities had to be cancelled and overnight residential trips are at risk of being cancelled if the haze does not improve,” she says.

As a group, Tee says, Taylor’s Schools sees this as not simply a weather issue but “an operational risk”.

It is, therefore, taking “proactive measures across all schools”, including tracking air quality on an hourly basis; adjusting plans by, for instance, moving outdoor activities inside; communicating “frequently and proactively” with parents; and increasing the use of air conditioning and air filtration.

Going forward, she doesn’t expect El Niño to close schools, but she does expect to “prepare” and “actively monitor” the situation.

Ultimately, that is all schools can do - given, as Iliazov points out, there are limits to what they can control.

“We can prepare our campuses and our own systems, but we cannot control public roads, municipal drainage or wider infrastructure. In those circumstances, the most important things are good information, early decision-making, clear communication and the ability to respond flexibly as conditions change.”