Parents voice their fury at lack of info as school concrete chaos hits new term
Parents have spoken of their fury at a 'lack of information' after their children's schools were forced to close or implement emergency plans over unsafe concrete.
The Department for Education revealed yesterday that 104 sites have been found to contain outdated Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) - which is weaker than normal concrete and can collapse without warning. It means dozens of classrooms and entire buildings across the country will now have to close for urgent inspections and repairs.
But officials have refused to provide a list of all the schools affected by the disruption, leaving many - including Labour's Shadow Education secretary - to call on Number 10 to "come clean with parents" and set out the full scale of the problem.
Kingsdown School, a special school in Essex, has been forced to delay the start of term - drawing sympathy from the local community (Alamy Live News.)Many worried parents and members of local communities have also taken to social media to vent their frustration. One wrote: "What a disgrace! no list of the schools involved, the timing, so close to schools re-opening for their Autumn term, and, the lack of care that this shows the Government has for the UK’s children! Education Secretary, you need to get your act together to deal with this MAJOR problem fast, especially after the effects of the Covid lockdown!". Another simply wrote: "Where is the list?".
On one local Facebook group in Essex, a worried mum confessed she was considering pulling her children out of their local secondary - which is understood to be erecting temporary classrooms and taking GCSE pupils to other nearby schools - as they were "worried it’s going to disrupt their education". But other parents said they had been left feeling "much more confident in the whole process" following a school meeting, with one suggesting it was clear that teachers there "care so much about the kids".
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Kingsdown School, a special school in Southend-on-Sea, is another of the more than 100 schools affected by the disruption. The local council confirmed the school building had been closed due to "concerns about crumbling concrete", leaving the school unable to open for the new term next week as planned because teachers have been left unable to access "vital equipment".
Staff at Kingsdown School have been telephoning parents urgently to inform them of this, the council added. The closure has drawn lots of sympathetic messages from people in the area, and one person wrote on Facebook: "Six weeks is already a very long time for a child with additional needs but to do this 2 days before they’re due back is an absolute joke. They’ve had 6-8 weeks to sort this out. Do we really expect anything more though". Another member of the local community wrote: "Of all the schools this has to be the worse scenario. Those children need such expert help to enable them to access their learning and development. Also parents must be devastated."
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