Shoeburyness High School confirms crumbling concrete on site

Technology lessons at an Essex school have been reduced after several classrooms were found to have crumbling concrete issues.

Shoeburyness High School confirmed three technology classrooms and one technician's room were built using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, known as RAAC.

The school said the rooms had been shut off and it was looking at mitigation.

It said there was no danger to pupils or staff in other parts of the school.

Ben Stickley, chief executive of the Southend East Community Trust, which runs the school, said: "As soon as the [Department for Education] guidance changed on 1 August [the rooms] were immediately put out of use before the children came back.

"We've had a structural engineer visit... and we are now looking at remedial works so that we can reopen those rooms in the near future.

"What we have had to do is restrict the curriculum because those are our only hard technology teaching rooms for things like woodwork and metalwork but we hope that is for a relatively short period whilst we put the mitigation in."

In a letter to parents on Tuesday, head teacher Teri-Leigh Jones said: "I want to offer my reassurance to you that there is absolutely no risk to students, or indeed anyone at Shoeburyness High School.

"No other RAAC is present in the school, and the classrooms identified will remain securely closed off until the necessary works have been completed."

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