Raac: Crumbling concrete schools will suffer ‘for years to come’

Kim Earle, head teacher at Altrincham College, was no stranger to Raac when the guidance changed last August.

“We’d been there and got the t-shirt,” she tells the BBC. “It’s been awful.”

The concrete was first discovered just before Christmas 2019 and large parts of the school ended up needing to close, including about 10 classrooms, a special educational needs facility and the school’s drama studio.

The school is now Raac-free and hasn’t seen a drop in pupil numbers this year – although fewer students have chosen drama GCSE – but Ms Earle says she had to wait a year to be reimbursed £217,000 from the Department for Education (DfE) for the removal.

“We have had to tighten our belts,” she says, including hiring less experienced staff and cutting back on subject-specific spending, like PE equipment.

“We had to introduce a sort of bidding system for staff… if they felt there was something they really needed.”

Ms Earle says she doesn’t want any school to experience what hers has gone through, and wants others to know there is hope.

“At the end of the day you will have a safe school,” she says. “Once you are safe in the knowledge that you will have a safe school, you can get on with teaching.”