Explained: Over 100 schools across England forced to shut down after being made with RAAC concrete. Here’s why

More than 100 schools across England have been told to shut down over safety concerns after being made with a certain type of concrete that is prone to collapse, reported the British media, on Friday (September 1). 

The announcement has reportedly left the institutes scrambling to make arrangements to continue teaching as an order by the United Kingdom government was issued days before the start of the autumn term. 

What did the UK government say?

The announcement was made by the UK Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, on Thursday (August 31) who said that the affected schools would contact parents directly and that “If you don’t hear, don’t worry.” 

However, she did not mention when the list of affected schools will be published, prompting criticism from the opposition Labour Party. Additionally, the teaching unions also slammed the government for the back-to-school chaos and called it “nothing short of a scandal”. 

Keegan told reporters that as many as 156 school buildings have been identified as containing Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete or RAAC. Notably, there are more than 20,000 schools in England.

The education secretary said 104 schools or “settings” require urgent action while 52 have already received repair works. The Department for Education (DfE) has also noted that a vast majority of schools and colleges “will be unaffected”. 

“We’re taking a very safety-first approach and we’re really being cautious here,” said the UK education secretary. 

The RAAC is essentially a lightweight form of concrete which according to the UK government’s website was used to build roofs, schools, colleges and other buildings from the 1950s until the mid-1990s, but has since been found to be at risk of collapse.

It has also been described as “80 per cent air” and is said to have a lifespan of around 30 years. The UK government’s announcement also comes months after a report by the watchdog National Audit Office (NAO) noted the risk of injury or death from a school building collapse is “very likely”. 

It also highlighted concerns for school buildings that still contained RAAC and identified 572 schools where this concrete might be present. 

The DfE said it sent a questionnaire to schools in 2022 asking if they had any confirmed or suspected cases of RAAC in their buildings and sent DfE-commissioned engineers to check if the institutes provided a positive response. 

The education department also said the British government has been aware of the use of RAAC in public sector buildings since 1994 but the issue came to light in 2018 when a roof collapsed at a Kent school. 

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the Labour has also not seen the full list of schools affected and urged ministers to “come clean with parents” about the full scale of the challenge before them. 

She also said that the government is “failing” children by shutting the schools just before the new term started. “This is an absolutely staggering display of Tory incompetence as they start a fresh term by failing our children again,”  said Phillipson. 

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT said that while the “news is shocking” it isn’t “hugely surprising,”. “What we are seeing here are the very real consequences of a decade of swingeing cuts to spending on school buildings,” said Whiteman, as quoted by Sky News. 

The Local Government Association that they have been warning about the risk of RAAC since 2018. The timing of the announcement meant schools and councils had been left with “very little time to make urgent rearrangements and minimise disruption to classroom learning,” said Kevin Bentley, senior vice-chairman of the association. 

The education secretary told reporters that the first thing to do is identify where the RAAC is used.“Some children will be moved to a different part of the building, some of the buildings will be propped up, so the roofs will be propped up, some of them will be having temporary classrooms,” said Keegan.  

The DfE said the majority of the school sites would remain open for face-to-face learning and only specific parts of buildings will be closed where RAAC is used. According to media reports, some students have already been told they will be learning remotely, in temporary classrooms or at different schools. 

One parent has told Sky they were warned that the “disruption will continue until 2025, or they may have to go to a new location altogether”. 

In an interview with Times Radio, the schools minister Nick Gibb also revealed that the British government is also in the midst of rebuilding seven hospitals due to issues related to RAAC. 

“They use propping where they identify RAAC and also we are rebuilding seven hospitals because of extensive RAAC in those hospitals,” said Gibb. 

British media reports have also reported that a number of public buildings including schools, hospitals and police stations have been identified as being at risk because of RAAC. 

(With inputs from agencies)

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.