Anxiety levels in school communities ‘high’ due to concrete crisis – union

Headteachers are feeling ‘a very heavy sense of responsibility’, according to the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

General view of Park View School in London, which has been affected with sub standard reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac). Picture date: Wednesday September 6, 2023. (PA Wire)

Anxiety levels are “high” among school leaders and parents as a result of the recent concrete crisis, a headteachers’ union chief has said.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said some schools have “given up” waiting for the Government to send out surveyors to look for collapse-risk concrete and they have instead taken matters into their own hands.

Mr Barton said he has heard of a school chief who reached out directly to a surveyor and paid them £750 to look for reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) on their site for “peace of mind”.

Anxiety levels are quite high. There's a lot of anxiety from parents

Geoff Barton, Association of School and College Leaders

The headteachers’ union leader told the PA news agency: “They are feeling a very heavy sense of responsibility.

“They will be graduates in History or English or science or whatever. They’re not skilled architects. They haven’t got the expertise.

“Their worry will be whether an unreasonable expectation of them has been put upon their shoulders.”

His comments come after more than 100 were ordered to fully or partially shut just days before the start of term due to concerns about the safety of Raac.

Mr Barton told PA: “Anxiety levels are quite high. There’s a lot of anxiety from parents. And of course at a time when quite rightly we want the emphasis on every child being in school, the last thing we need is something which undermines that confidence that being in school is a safe place to be.”

School chiefs who have been told to return surveys about Raac by Friday have voiced concerns about the “accuracy” of the Government’s records.

Mr Barton said some academy trust and school leaders who have been urged by ministers to return the Government’s questionnaire on Raac claim they submitted the forms many months ago.

The ASCL is calling on the Department for Education (DfE) to review its systems to see whether some surveys on Raac were “in fact returned but have not been recorded as such due to a technical error”.

Mr Barton added: “We would urge the Department for Education to review its systems to see whether at least some of these supposedly non-returned survey forms – and possibly a great many – were in fact returned but have not been recorded as such due to a technical error.”

It comes after the Education Secretary told school chiefs who had not yet responded to a survey about crumbling concrete to “get off their backsides” and inform the Government if they are affected.

On Tuesday, Gillian Keegan urged the 5% of schools, or the bodies responsible for them, to fill out the DfE’s questionnaire about potential Raac on their sites.

An email was sent on Monday evening by education minister Baroness Barran to the responsible bodies for schools that had not completed the Raac questionnaire calling on them to respond by Friday at the latest.

It said: “DfE is likely to be required to publish information about schools which have Raac, schools which do not, and schools where there is still uncertainty.”

Mr Barton said: “We’ve now received six messages directly from trust and school leaders raising concerns about the accuracy of the Department for Education’s records and have heard similar reports from other sources.

“All tell us that they returned their Raac surveys many months ago but on Monday night they received a letter from education minister Baroness Barran effectively threatening to name and shame them if they did not complete the survey by Friday September 8.

“In two cases, the trusts which have contacted us have overseen a transfer of schools and have questioned whether the DfE’s systems may have not transferred previously completed Raac surveys of these schools to the new trust and have therefore recorded the trust’s record as being incomplete.”