Education Secretary Gillian Keegan dodges national media as she visits Raac-hit school in Essex
Under-fire Education Secretary Gillian Keegan dodged national media as she made a discreet visit to a school whose term has been disrupted by crumbling concrete.
As thousands of pupils were ordered to stay at home, the cabinet minister spoke to school leaders and local Conservative MPs on Thursday in Essex - the county worst hit by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac).
Her visit to the Anglo European School in Ingatestone came hours after Ms Keegan had hit out at “sensationalists” who have asked questions about the crisis.
The school is one with protective mitigations in place and temporary buildings installed, rather than one of those forced to close completely just as students prepared to return for the new school year.
Jody Gee, the school's headteacher, said affected concrete was identified in the roof of their sixth form building in December 2022. Temporary classroom buildings, funded by the Department for Education (DFE), have since been installed and timber propping has been put into the affected building to “make sure it is safe and secure”.
Mrs Gee said it was a “very costly process” and “schools don’t have that sort of money at their disposal”.
But she called on the government to provide the funding for all schools to be able to deal with the crisis safely.
“It is essential that we have, moving forward now, a plan which is fully funded which has a timescale which is definite and immovable," she said.
“So that schools, and particularly parents and students, are reassured that they are going to be given classrooms and education provision on site which is fit for the 21st century and fit for their learning needs.”
Ms Keegan ordered more than 100 schools and colleges to make either full or partial closures last week after she received new evidence over the concrete’s collapse risk.
National broadcasters and reporters were not invited to the school in Essex, as often takes place when ministers carry out public-facing visits, but Ms Keegan did speak to a local newspaper.
During her tour of the school, she repeated her praise for Essex County Council's approach to handling the problem.
"Essex has been really proactive - that's why a lot of the work is already under way," she said in comments to EssexLive.
"Work here started at the beginning of the year and that's how proactive some schools have been.
"The responsible bodies, some of them, have been really responsible and brilliant. Essex County Council and the schools in this area have been really, really ahead of the curve."
Ms Keegan provoked anger after she was caught on camera asking why no-one says “you’ve done a f****** good job” while “everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing”.
At a drinks reception in Westminster on Wednesday night, Ms Keegan insisted the critical coverage “really hasn’t bothered me that much because I know I’ve made the right decision”.
“If you know you’ve made the right decision, but they don’t know you’ve made the right decision, and you also know you can manage the implementation, execution of what you need to do, they’re sensationalising it,” she said at the invite-only Conservatives In Communications event.
“They’re not journalists, they’re sensationalists, but I’m more confident that, you know, I just really think it’s the right thing, we’ve made the right decision.”
A list published by the Department for Education (DfE) shows 147 schools have been affected so far by Raac, with 19 forced to delay the start of term.
Four have had to switch to remote learning for all students and an additional 20 have had to offer some remote learning.
Six major unions representing school staff have written to Ms Keegan demanding she sets out how many schools suspect having Raac but are yet to have been investigated or surveyed.
With the National Education Union, Unison and the National Association of Head Teachers among the signatories, they have also demanded to know the deadline for clearing all schools of the dangerous concrete.
They fear the level of information from the DfE so far may not “reflect the full extent of the problem”.
Ministers have sought to level some blame for a delay in getting the full information together on school leaders.
Ms Keegan told school chiefs on Tuesday yet to respond to a survey on the possible presence of Raac to “get off their backsides” and respond.
But Downing Street said the picture was improving, with only a “small minority” yet to write back.
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