Parents consider private tuition after Raac concrete shuts Scalby School in Scarborough

Parents of pupils who have been unable to return to a school in North Yorkshire because of fears over dangerous concrete say they may have to resort to private tuition.

Scalby School, in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, had to shut after "significant parts" of thesite were deemed unsafe due to the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete(Raac).

Zoe Jenkins, whose children Hattie and Thomas were due to return to the school this week, was among the parents sent a letter saying the school would not re-open until 10 September.

Students will then be offered a mix of face-to-face and online learning.

Zoe said she had looked into finding a private tutor to help out with Scalby’s home schooling programme.

She spoke of the shock of getting a letter just days before the start of the new term, adding that parents faced "the fear of the unknown".

"At the moment we can’t plan, we don’t know what to do, which is frustrating when youwant to recover from six weeks off. Everyone was ready to go back to their routines, so it’s a big upheaval.

"And if they don’t go back to school soon, how long is it going to be if they’re at home – and how are they going to learn here?"

Hattie said: "It was a bit annoying because they’ve had the whole summer holidays to sortthis out."

Thomas added: "I was a bit happy at first because we get longer time off, and then I don’treally like home schooling."

In its letter to parents, the school said it was aware of the presence of degrading concrete last term and took the necessary measures to comply with government guidance on itssafety.

But last Thursday the situation changed, meaning significant parts of the site were thendeemed not to be safe. It could affect teaching for months.

Michael McCluskie of the Coast and Vale Learning Trust, which runs the school, said: “The frustrating thing is, when students are in school with the normal educational provision, with expert teaching, that is when they succeed.

“And the frustration is going to be that we’re back to a situation that almost resembles thepandemic after coming through a successful year."

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended the government's handling of the situation.

He said: “I know the timing is frustrating but I want to give people a sense of the scale of what we’re grappling with here. There are around 22,000 schools in England and the important thing to know is we expect 95% of those schools won’t be impacted.”

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