Risk of school buildings in England collapsing upgraded to "Very Likely"

[noblegiraffe]

It is now very likely that some school buildings in England will collapse, but the government will not tell parents (or teachers!) which buildings these are, and the situation is described as 'worsening' due to the lack of plans to rectify the problem.

The government reassures us with the line that 'there were no open schools or college buildings “where we know of an imminent risk to life”'

No imminent risk, just a very likely risk. Phew.

I knew that the government didn't care about children's education, but now it's clear that they don't give a shit about their physical safety either.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/worsening-risk-school-buildings-collapsing-says-dfe

I'm not surprised by this at all!

I don't know what needs to happen to get parents to care about this sort of thing.

An actual school building to collapse?

The problems with the school estate have been known about for years, it will cost billions to get it up to a merely 'safe' standard. Not a priority though.

It's due to the construction method - see this link regarding the risk to NHS hosptals.
They've know about this for years and years.

But school governors will know. We are constantly talking sbout our building. It's no where near collapse but things have fallen in. There's no way without surveys when things will fall down it rains.

The problem we have is being a academy, it has the come out of our budget. So unless it's covered under insurers I can see how some schools are going to faced with winding up and closing or doing the roof.

I think we are going to go full circle of every school becoming an academy ( in which there is zero choice - it's coming) then things falling spectacularly and going over to another non academy model.

Parents are worried. If they know. My dd ceiling collapsed during the school day while the kids was in it. It's now replaced by a tarp covered in mouldy water. The parents complain. The only realistic way to get the kids of that class room is into the private sector. There is no spare class room. There is is no spare cash. The LA has taken a 2m gov incentive to get out of their sen deficite. Lots of complaints from parents will do about as much as the 2000+ SEN appeals per year. Jack shit. Parents aren't the answer in my county. Neither is complaints or tribunals. All of the above is very much part of business as usual in my LA. One of the biggest in England. To get a good outcome for your child in this county isn't to rage against the LA but too advocate St a personal level for your child. We took group JR against the LA. It did sweet FA.

Our sixth form common room was closed off for several days once, and no one was saying why. It eventually came out that the site team had noticed that the end wall had developed a pronounced bowing so they'd decided to keep the kids out until someone could come and have a look.
My teaching room was directly above the common room.

The building was condemned in pretty short order, closed down with everything inside it, and finally demolished.

The government don't need to tell the teachers, we work in these buildings every day, we know which ones leak / are crumbling etc.

Parents aren't the answer in my county

I don't mean parents complaining to the school, schools can do jack shit about this. I mean parents as a group petitioning the government to start taking schools and education seriously. So long as the government think that education is way down the list of voting priorities, they'll continue with their plan to do fuck all about it.

Schools keep being told that there is no money for anything ever. The government subsidised domestic energy bills (so cash to the energy companies) to the tune of £7 billion in November alone. They can always find money for the things they want to do, and the companies they want to hand money to.

I know my building is both leaky and crumbly (and riddled with asbestos). What I don't know is if it is at imminent risk of collapse.

Of course the government has done nothing about the asbestos risk in schools either. Nor are teachers and parents told where the asbestos is.

www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/school-roof-collapse-prompts-concrete-plank-warning-14-05-2019/

It's an issue in hospitals too but the above links to a school roof that actually did collapse. My belief is that the issue relates to RAAC planks. The school should know if they have RAAC plank construction and I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask.

Another interesting (and horrifying) read: www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.cross-safety.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/failure-reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-planks.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiR-Kug8Y_8AhXBoFwKHXq-BF8QFnoECBYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1FZeRwNqMkdzOjGShHY5iQ

This is horrifying. In terms of Academies not having the cash, maybe they need to prioritise the kids instead of paying high salaries for top management.

From Augend's link "The partial collapse that occurred in 2018 was at a weekend so the school was fortunately unoccupied. In structural safety terms it was a near miss. Similarly, in the case of the Edinburgh School masonry collapse in 2016, this occurred in the early morning when no pupils were present. In either case, the consequences could have been more severe, possibly resulting in injuries or fatalities."

So the only reason kids haven't been killed in unsafe school buildings is pure luck?

Horrifying.

It's the same in all government buildings- schools, hospitals, military bases...the list goes on and its a ticking time bomb.

I don't think that would save enough money to be able to demolish and rebuild a school building.

This needs to come from government funding.

This report was from the DfE in 2021

schoolsweek.co.uk/repairing-englands-schools-will-cost-11-4-billion-dfe-admits/

"Secondary schools have an “average condition need” of £1.6 million, while all-through and 16-plus settings have a need of around £1.3 million. This compares to around £300,000 for the average primary school and pupil referral unit, and around £500,000 for the average special school.

Electrical services represent the greatest condition need, with an estimated cost of £2.5 billion for things like mains switch panels, lighting and IT infrastructure.

Mechanical services, including boilers, pipework and air conditioning is second, at around £2 billion, while fixing external walls, windows and doors will cost around £1.75 billion. Repairs to roofs will cost around £1.5 billion, as will improving site and external areas."

I knew the school estate was in an awful condition, but this £11.4 billion needed only refers to repairs and doesn't seem to reference school buildings that require demolishing and rebuilding due to the risk of collapse.

That is a reasonable point. Are we going to wait until some kids are injured or killed?

It is an interesting and quite concerning area when one starts looking into it.

The replacement costs for hospitals are enormous - QEH is coated at just under a billion pounds. The work to just try and ensure safety in the interim is costing nearly a hundred million.

www.edp24.co.uk/news/23086945.come-see-crumbling-hospital-mr-sunak/

I am not sure that the issues are as severe in schools but it's concerning wherever it occurs.

Also not surprised by this.

I used to be a governor of a local primary school who had to have all the windows from a corridor that connected two buildings removed, as the glass panels were likely to fall out without warning.

There are some major building issues with schools and unfortunately much of the cost has to come out of the school's own budget, which barely even covers day to day costs, let alone anything more major.

Quite possibly as the compensation will be cheaper (I am thinking like the tories now, this is not my opinion) for the loss of life than paying to fix all the schools.

These small number of salaries, whilst high and sometimes unreasonably so, are a drop in the ocean when compared with the overall underfunding the Tories have deliberately inflicted on schools since 2010.

This is not a school failure, it is yet another government failure.

We have a roof that leaks every time it rains, the children are becoming adept at manoeuvring round the buckets, automatic front doors which are either completely open or completely shut- and a hall wall with a large crack in it from top to bottom- which is apparently only essential repair rather than critical, so won't be done. We are a maintained school- although I think that is something of a misnomer- and the budget simply doesn't cover the repairs required- and that's before we get started on the heating that doesn't work, the windows that won't move, carpets that are a trip hazard, rat infested grounds and playgrounds that need resurfacing to be safe. And we are not a priority school!

Our very expensive new build has automatic velux type roof lights. They handily let in the rain round the fittings but won't open.
The building is boiling in summer and freezing in winter and several of the enormous panes of glass have cracked under heat or cold. We're lucky that when it happened to an upstairs window, no one was standing below.

This is what happened last time conservatives were in for a long time. It is why Labour did PFI to fund the enormous cost of building new hospitals and schools.

Is PFI bad because it saddles organisations with debts to repay or is it good because new school buildings actually get built?

I'm surprised a Tory donor who works in construction hasn't pushed for new build contracts for this sort of thing. But maybe that's not how it works

A few years ago a local maintained school managed to scrimp together enough to replace leaking sky lights, with instructions to use whoever provided the cheapest quote. The result was they disturbed asbestos in 5 classrooms, which were used until this was detected at the inspection 2 months later, and everything in those classrooms had to be thrown out.