More than 100 schools are facing the immediate closure of buildings constructed from potentially dangerous aerated concrete panels, plunging the beginning of term into chaos for thousands of pupils.
The government has found that 156 schools in England have reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) materials but only 52 have put mitigations in place against risks including collapse, it admitted on Thursday. Engineers have warned the material is at risk of cracking and spalling and of “shear failure”.
The Department for Education (DfE) has told schools to immediately shut buildings made with aerated concrete until safety work is undertaken. Official communications seen by the Guardian acknowledge that “this may come as a shock and is likely to cause disruption” but say “the safety of pupils, students and staff is our priority”.
In an escalation of the schools building safety crisis, the DfE has issued new advice – believed to have happened as recently as Thursday – stating that regardless of the assessed risk of a building made using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) blocks, such buildings should be “taken out of use and mitigations should be implemented immediately”.
The department is understood to be planning to make a statement imminently and education unions said they had been told a formal announcement was due on Thursday afternoon.
The Guardian revealed on Wednesday that officials were making hurried calls urging school leaders to draw up contingency plans for buildings at risk of collapse because of crumbling concrete. Now schools are being told to take buildings out of use straight away, in what appears to be a response to advice to proceed with greater caution.
Schools are being told that the government will help them implement contingency plans quickly to “keep disruption to face-to-face education to an absolute minimum”.
Decaying aerated concrete had been found in 65 schools in England after nearly 200 completed surveys, with 24 requiring emergency action, according to a report by the National Audit Office. The number of schools at risk is expected to increase when the results of surveys of 572 schools with suspected RAAC are published by the DfE.
Four schools were shut in April and June after RAAC was discovered in their buildings. On Wednesday, a DfE spokesperson said: “We have been engaging with schools and responsible bodies about the potential risks of RAAC since 2018 and subsequently published guidance on identifying and managing it.”
The Association of School and College Leaders said the rush to establish contingency plans in case buildings collapse was “symptomatic of the government’s neglect of the school estate”.
The shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said it was a “staggering display of Tory incompetence”.
“Dozens of England’s schools are at risk of collapse with just days before children crowd their corridors,” she said. “Ministers have been content to let this chaos continue for far too long.”
Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the union had repeatedly raised concerns about the dangers and “while this news is shocking, sadly it is not hugely surprising”. He said it was the result of “a decade of swingeing cuts to spending on school buildings”.
“The government is right to put the safety of pupils and staff first [but] … the timing of this couldn’t be worse, with children due to return from the summer holidays next week. This will put school leaders under tremendous pressure as they have to scramble to organise alternative accommodation.”
Unison, which represents more than 200,000 non-academic school staff, said the situation was “nothing short of a scandal”.
“The DfE and government have squandered valuable months hiding this crisis when they should have been fixing dangerous school buildings,” said its head of education, Mike Short.
A DfE script that appears to be for use by officials contacted by potentially affected schools states: “As RAAC has been identified in your school/college/nursery, we are recommending you vacate all the areas with confirmed RAAC – even if they are assessed as ‘non-critical’ unless mitigations are already in place.”
It asks school leaders to confirm if propping, failsafing or strengthening works have been undertaken, how many affected spaces have undergone mitigations, and whether the school can fit pupils into spaces that are unaffected.
With just days to go before next week’s start of term, it tells them: “Ahead of the start of term you should plan to take any RAAC affected space that do not have mitigations out of use and timetable accordingly.”
The Institution of Structural Engineers this year warned that cracking and spalling were risks in roof and floor panels made from the aerated concrete products that were often installed from the 1960s to the 1980s. Many roof panels have been installed with insufficient bearing on structural supports resulting in a “significant risk” to the material’s integrity including “shear failure”. Some panels have become saturated by water ingress making them heavier than they were designed to be.
It said to fix the buildings “it may be appropriate to apply remedial action only to the affected panels [but] this may be applied to all panels within the building being assessed”.
In 2010 a long-planned £55bn schools rebuilding programme, Building Schools for the Future, was scrapped by the then education secretary, Michael Gove, during the first months of the coalition government. He has since said he regretted the decision.
The Liberal Dem0crat education spokesperson, Munira Wilson, said: “This shocking admission is a concrete result of years of Conservative neglect of our school buildings. Parents, teachers and pupils will be horrified that children have been taught in unsafe buildings and cannot return to school next week. Instead pupils face more misery learning in temporary classrooms or being bussed miles to local schools. Pupil safety is paramount but for this to come out just days before term starts is totally unacceptable.”
