Northern Ireland schools urged to "wear more clothes" as energy bills set to climb by £8m

Schools across Northern Ireland have been instructed to dress more warmly rather than turn up the thermostat, as the Education Authority (EA) warns that gas and electricity bills for the school estate are on course to rise by around £8m by March 2027.

In a letter to head teachers, the EA said staff and pupils should "wear more clothes" if classrooms are cold, and urged every school to review how much energy it uses and find ways to cut consumption "wherever possible". The advice forms part of a package of measures aimed at shielding the education budget from a sharp jump in wholesale energy costs.

The authority spelled out the scale of the problem in stark financial terms. Total gas bills for schools are projected to surge by 60%, climbing from £10.7m to £17m over the course of the 2026/27 financial year. Electricity spending is also expected to grow, though by a more modest margin, rising 5% from £23.8m to £25.1m over the same period.

The EA attributed the increase largely to instability in global energy markets, telling head teachers that "recent geopolitical events are expected to have a substantial impact on energy costs across the Education Authority during the 2026/27 financial year". Among the specific pressures identified is the impact of the US-Israel war with Iran, which is cited as one of the factors pushing prices higher.

Alongside the call for warmer clothing, schools have been asked to trim heating by roughly one hour a day and to switch off classroom lights so that pupils can work by natural daylight. It is a simple prescription on paper, but educators across Northern Ireland say the reality on the ground is far more complicated, particularly for older or specialist settings where energy use cannot easily be scaled back.

Kirsty Logan-Hall, principal of Tullygally Primary School in Craigavon, said her school was "committed to promoting responsible energy consumption and regularly reinforce good practice with staff and pupils". Her remarks underscore that many schools already have energy-saving habits in place, and that further cuts will not come without a trade-off.

However, Logan-Hall stressed that the ability to achieve meaningful reductions is limited by the physical condition of the building itself. The school occupies an older structure that brings "inherent energy efficiency challenges", meaning far more heat escapes than in a modern, well-insulated facility, regardless of how carefully the controls are managed.

The site's layout compounds the difficulty. Logan-Hall explained that the accommodation and operational needs of the school's specialist provision mean the grounds are particularly spread out, requiring heating, lighting and ongoing use of multiple areas throughout the day to guarantee appropriate learning environments, accessibility and pupil welfare.

In practical terms, that means empty corridors, halls and specialist rooms may still need to be warm and lit so that pupils, including those with additional needs, can move around safely and be taught in suitable conditions. Logan-Hall cautioned that there is "limited scope for reducing energy consumption without adversely impacting the quality of provision, staff working conditions or the wellbeing of pupils".

A second principal, Claire Robinson of Holy Evangelists Primary School in Dunmurry, offered a similarly blunt assessment, describing current energy costs as "ferocious". Robinson said her school cannot simply gamble with its heating settings because parts of the building have underfloor heating and classrooms are not permitted to fall below a certain temperature.

"We can't just turn the heating off in some areas of the school," she said, highlighting a constraint that sits awkwardly with the EA's request to shave an hour off daily heating. Ironically, despite being a relatively new build, the school has been awarded an energy efficiency rating of D, a reflection of the high cost of operating its heating system rather than the age of the fabric of the building.

The EA's warning lands against a wider backdrop of pressure on household budgets, with rising energy costs already affecting families throughout Northern Ireland. For parents, the sight of schools asking children to layer up in winter clothing is likely to reinforce concerns about whether everyday essentials will become harder to afford.

For school leaders, the coming year presents an unenviable balancing act: satisfy the EA's demand to cut consumption, keep buildings safe and warm enough for learning, and do it all without eating into teaching time or the quality of provision. As principals have made clear, that balance will be difficult to strike without further investment in efficiency upgrades.

Ultimately, the letter is a signal that energy costs have moved from a background facilities issue to a front-line budgetary concern for Northern Ireland's schools. Whether the suggested measures prove sufficient — or whether more substantive funding support follows — will become clearer as the 2026/27 financial year unfolds.