Keegan sorry school RAAC concrete closures came at 'worst time'

Image source, PA Media

Schools affected by unsafe concrete are battling to secure surveys, while temporary classrooms could take months to build, the BBC has been told.

A governor of a closed school told the BBC none of the engineers suggested by the government were available.

And one firm said building some temporary classrooms could take months.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told BBC Radio 2 she was sorry that the call to close buildings came at the "worst time".

But she also criticised the 5% of schools in England that had not yet responded to the government's survey about whether they had RAAC, saying: "Hopefully all this publicity will make them get off their backsides".

Schools are returning from their summer break this week, but the risk posed by collapse-prone reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) has resulted in full or partial closures and some pupils are learning online.

More than 150 schools in England have been identified as having the potentially dangerous concrete - and a list of schools will be published "before Friday", schools minister Nick Gibb said.

Ms Keegan said on Monday there could be hundreds of schools affected.

Hina Robinson, chair of governors and parent of a child at Wyburns primary school in Rayleigh, Essex, told the BBC that the Department for Education had provided some phone numbers of engineers but none were available for remedial work.

"The focus is on 'how can we get children back into learning in a building of some sort'," Ms Robinson said, adding some children will return to online learning until a space can be found.

She said online learning was "very difficult for the children," but even those who were able to be on site face disruption as "classrooms are set up in places that aren't meant to be classrooms".

Joshua Wedgewood, a student at St Leonards Catholic School in County Durham, is learning online as his school is temporarily closed because of RAAC concrete concerns.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was like being back in the Covid pandemic, saying: "On a screen it's just not real life, it's isolating, it's being stuck inside your home. It's not nice."

James Saunders, is a head teacher at Honywood School in Essex, where about half of the rooms are unusable due to RAAC.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live that he has explored the option of setting up marquees outside the school as "they're quicker to set up than a mobile classroom".

He said the school will be putting a proportion of its students back onto remote learning using methods employed during Covid.

The boss of the Wernick Group - which provides portable buildings - told the BBC the current situation was "akin to what happened at the beginning of Covid", when hundreds of test centres were set up around the UK.

David Wernick said: "Clearly emergency action needs to be taken and classrooms are required throughout the UK."

Kieran Webberly, of Wernick, estimated a "simple" temporary building would take "days, a couple of weeks maximum" to construct, but a "bespoke modular" two-storey temporary building would take about six months to build and cost about £1.2m.

Brian Berry, chief executive at the Federation of Master Builders said: "Local builders tend to have full schedules months ahead, so may struggle to cater for the scale of the issue facing schools, like putting up portable classrooms at speed, to ensure children don't miss lessons."

Meanwhile, safety consultant, Damini Sharma, said RAAC could be present in more buildings including social housing, courts and hospitals but was potentially difficult to detect because it was often covered.

She told BBC Breakfast that RAAC was was a very lightweight, porous material that was used predominantly from the 50s to the 80s" and "not really suitable for permanent structures".

The information about the lifespan of the material was not available when it was first used, she said.

The head of the spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, accused the government of taking a "sticking plaster approach" to carrying out essential maintenance on school buildings.

Gareth Davies said the "unflashy" job of repairs has been neglected.

But schools minister Mr Gibb said the response to the crisis had been "world-leading".

Education Secretary Ms Keegan told Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 that the government was waiting on questionnaires sent to schools to see how prevalent RAAC concrete was.

"There's RAAC all over the world. But in March 2020 we'd asked all the responsible bodies to survey for RAAC - we went to 20,000 schools and the vast majority don't have RAAC.

"We've been looking at cases of RAAC in any environment over the summer. The 'what's changed' moment was there were three cases over the summer - one in a school outside England, a commercial property, one at a school in England.

"You have to manage it - not tear every building down."

She said she had two lists - the initial list of schools asked to close buildings last week, and another of schools that are suspected to contain RAAC and are going to be surveyed in the next fortnight.

Image source, Reuters

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, arriving to Tuesday's cabinet meeting, apologised for swearing on mic on Monday

Earlier, schools minister Mr Gibb added his department bid for 200 school refurbishments a year in 2021 - but the Treasury only funded 50.

"The Treasury has to take into account all the other bids from across Whitehall," he said.

He said that since Rishi Sunak became prime minister an additional £4bn had been allocated in revenue funding for schools in England, which meant £59.6bn will be in the budget next year, a "record amount".

However, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was "unforgivable" that children were missing the start of term because of potentially unsafe buildings.

"Children are not at school today because of the action the government has failed to take in relation to schools, he said.

"It is a metaphor, frankly, for their sticking plaster politics: never fixing the fundamentals, always sticking plasters."

She made the comments just after finishing an interview with ITV news while the camera was still filming.

A No 10 source told the BBC those comments by Ms Keegan were "wrong", but in a follow-up interview Ms Keegan apologised for her "choice language".