SCHOOL REPORT
A FULL list of schools at risk of collapsing must be published immediately, ministers have been urged.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has been told to name all 156 buildings containing concrete prone to crumbling.
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Tens of thousands of kids are facing the prospect of lockdown-style remote learning after their classrooms were yesterday declared unsafe.
With just days to go before the start of term, heads and parents are demanding to know why the government has suddenly sprung this new guidance despite it being an issue for years.
Some 104 schools were contacted yesterday warning they have critical levels of the lightweight reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).
It comes on top of 52 schools which have already been told to make emergency arrangements to prevent schools collapsing.
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Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the government must reveal those schools affected right away.
She said: “We haven't seen the full list of schools affected. We don't know where they are, ministers should come clean with parents and set out the full scale of the challenge that we're facing."
It comes as...
- An urgent warning went out to parents as schools were told to shut down buildings
- It was revealed 700,000 students would be impacted by the crumbling concrete fears
- A list of known impacted schools was pulled together
Schools Minister Nick Gibb today said they will publish the full list once parents have been contacted first and arrangements made for the schools and kids affected.
Dozens of schools will be forced to move to partial or fully remote learning due to the dodgy concrete.
They were ordered to close at-risk buildings after more concrete started crumbling over the summer, Mr Gibb said.
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It followed a collapse of a roof at a school in Stevenage in 2018 caused by RAAC. Councillor Kevin Bentley, the leader of Essex Council which supposedly has multiple affected schools, said: “The mood is one of frustration, and great concern.”
National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said: "It is absolutely disgraceful, and a sign of gross Government incompetence, that a few days before the start of term, 104 schools are finding out that some or all of their buildings are unsafe and cannot be used.”
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