Raac: Parents protest as minister visits Durham school

Parents with children at a secondary school hit by potentially unsafe concrete have held a protest, telling a minister it must be rebuilt.

Raac was found at St Leonard's Catholic School in Durham last month.

Parents told schools minister Baroness Barran there had to be more support for teachers and pupils, adding it was like "being back in Covid times".

The Department for Education (DfE) says it hopes to finalise rebuilding plans before the end of the year.

The trust that runs the school said it had asked the Parliamentary Education Committee to use centre-assessed grades after lessons continued to be disrupted.

Several parents held a demonstration during the visit on Wednesday from the minister, who was invited by City of Durham Labour MP Mary Kelly Foy.

St Leonard's Catholic School, which has about 1,400 pupils, is using a mixture of face-to-face and online teaching after Raac was found just before the start of term.

This week pupils in Years 7 to 10 returned to school for two days a week while continuing with the majority of lessons online.

Year 11 and 12 pupils have returned to school four days a week, while those in Year 13 are being taken 14 miles (22km) by bus to the Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust HQ in Washington for lessons.

Parents Keith and Sally Mallard, who have a son in Year 11, said he was "already three weeks behind".

"He's had face-to-face lessons but in large groups of 90 or more children, sitting down with clipboards for long periods of time," Mrs Mallard said.

"The school is doing all it can and we know they can't do what they want to be doing."

"We are frustrated we haven't seen the situation come to any resolution," Mr Mallard added.

MP Ms Foy has complained about the lack of progress and said parents and staff at the school "deserved answers" on whether the school would be rebuilt.

"Another issue is that staff cannot go into the classrooms to get the equipment they need.

"The quicker that we get something that resembles normal, the better it will be for these kids," she said.

Katie Curtis, whose daughter is in Year 7, said it was like "going back to Covid times" for the pupils and the teachers.

"It's really quite difficult for them," she said.

"They've got minimal social interaction and not enough support."

She said "so many" of the students were struggling with their mental health with the "unknown of this week to the next" during the disruption.

Final-year A-level student Freya Moran described the situation as "massively" disruptive.

"Staff are trying so hard. But we're being moved around constantly. Some of us are doing online learning, some of us are being taught as whole-year groups.

"It's not what we should be getting and it means we can't learn effectively. I've come to school and I don't know which room I'm in today - and I don't know how many other classes are going to be in there."

The Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust has asked if it could use centre-assessed grades (CAG) for GCSE and A-level pupils, which happened across the country during the pandemic, using students' previous work to judge their abilities.

It has approached the parliamentary education select committee for assurances that if they were permitted to use CAG "for the duration of this upheaval" that pupils would not be disadvantaged when applying for university or jobs.

The Catholic education trust said the minister's visit was "in a supportive capacity to better understand the challenges being faced and how we can ensure our students get back to receiving the high levels of teaching we pride ourselves on".

Its chief executive officer, Nick Hurn, said it was hoped all children would resume face-to-face learning after the October half-term through the use of mobile classrooms and facilities at nearby Ushaw College.

Mr Hurn added Baroness Barran had pledged funding would be made available and a plan to build a new school would move forward as quickly as possible.

A DfE spokesman said it was "working to bring back face-to-face education for all pupils as soon as possible".The department said it would be rebuilding the school and added it expected to "begin the procurement, design and planning stage before the end of the year".

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