Attendance drops in Essex schools following RAAC chaos
Over 60 schools and other buildings have been affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in the last 6 months.
Last updated 5th Mar 2024
Essex County Council is noticing a rise in pupil anxiety and a drop in attendance, following school closures caused by weak concrete.
At the start of the academic year, schools across the country discovered they were at risk of collapse due to RAAC - with many forced into remote-learning.
Essex was named as the worst affected area.
Cllr Tony Ball, cabinet member for Education Excellence, lifelong learning, and employability, says they had to swing into action very quickly.
He said: "We forward funded a lot of remedial action in schools that the Department of Education said they would pay for eventually, but to act quickly, particularly on sourcing demountable classrooms, using innovative measures.
"Also, because we had the information on a lot of the schools that had RAAC, we again were able to act quickly and satisfy the Department of Education that we're taking appropriate action on the schools that we knew had RAAC."
Cllr Ball explained why Essex was so badly affected.
He said: "The reason for that is because Essex is a very large county. We have around 220,000 young people attend schools 550 schools altogether. Also, Essex grew very much in the 60s and 70s when RAAC was being used."
The local authority say its “concerned” as attendance in schools has dropped to 90% since the school closures.
Cllr Tony Ball explained: "The pandemic and RAAC hasn't helped with children's mental health. I don't think it's any secret that particularly younger ones, but not exclusively, being isolated at home and not mixing with their peers at school, has meant that school anxiety has risen and we've seen that with attendance dropping, which is really concerning.
"We really need to work with those that are suffering with mental health issues to try and put support behind to get them back into school."
The Department for Education (DfE) has published details on how it will permanently remove the concrete from all the affected schools and colleges across the country.
It comes after a school leaders' union called on the Government to provide more financial support to schools.
A total of 234 education settings in England have been identified as having RAAC in some areas of their buildings, which is a slight rise on 231 on November 27.
The DfE has said that 119 of these schools will have one or more buildings rebuilt or refurbished through the Government's School Rebuilding Programme as works to remove RAAC are more extensive or complex.
A further 110 schools and colleges - where works will typically be smaller in scale - will receive a grant to help them remove RAAC from their buildings.