A MUM whose son was set to start a new school this year says she’s furious he’s being sent into ANOTHER lockdown.
The parent was speaking out after it was yesterday revealed some 150 schools may be forced to close over fears they’ll collapse.
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It came after one classroom’s roof came crumbling down over the summer break as a result of dodgy concrete, sparking concerns it could happen when students were back.
Some of the affected schools are being forced to shut their gates completely, putting put pupils back into lockdown-style remote learning.
One of those Essex’s St Andrews Junior School in Hatfield Peverel.
The mum, who has not been named, said her son was set to walk onto the Chelmsford grounds for lessons in coming days.
But she says he was “confused and disappointed” to learn that was not the case.
The student closure came as parts of the school are built with “crumbly” reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).
The mum told MailOnline: “My son was supposed to be starting in his new school on Tuesday, however now we will be using Google classroom for the foreseeable future with no confirmed date of face-to-face teaching.
“We are extremely frustrated and our son is confused and disappointed.”
The parent said the school had not made any plans to use other buildings in the coming days.
She continued: “Although we do not blame the school for this situation.
“They have ordered some temporary ‘classrooms’ in the form of portacabins, which may arrive by mid-September.”
It was today revealed the first warnings that the crumbling concrete had been cracking came about in 1995 – nearly 20 years ago.
The Times reported a structural engineer in Somerset penned to the journal of the Institution of Structural Engineers described RAAC that had started to crack in a school.
He dubbed it was a “booby trap” for engineers and said that he believed it should not be used in permanent structures.
Then, in 2018, the roof came crashing down at Kent’s Singlewell Primary – forcing it to close for a week.
In recent months a probe found 400 school buildings across the country were made using RAAC.
The report announced in June that 700,000 youngsters are at schools in desperate need of repairs.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb today said the urgent warning to close and partially close 150 of those just before school starts back came after another collapse.
He told the BBC: “What we discovered over the summer was a number of instances, in schools and in non-schools, in England and outside England, where RAAC that had been considered to be a low risk actually turned out to be unsafe.
“So over the summer – given this evidence – we had to take a decision. And some of that evidence, by the way, was as late as last week. We had to then decide what to do given the previous advice.
“A beam that had no sign… that it was a critical risk and was thought to be safe collapsed.”
Ministers are now being urged to immediately publish a full list of the schools impacted after the government refused to.
Some parents are said to still be left in the dark – unsure whether their children’s school has been impacted.
What is RAAC and what is the problem with it?
What is RAAC?
RAAC is a lightweight type of concrete and is normally used in the roof, the floor, cladding and wall construction.
It was used in the UK since the mid-1950s but stopped being used in the 80s, according to the Local Government Association.
It’s believed many schools and officers were built with RAAC concrete.
The material has also been found in other types of buildings since – not all of which are in the public sector.
What is wrong with RAAC?
In some cases, inspections found some RAAC planks had defects that when coupled with severe weather, caused them to creep.
The condition of some planks then deteriorated causing them to collapse.
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