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RAAC and ruins: Link school discovers dangerous concrete

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Another local special school is shut down over concerns about ‘crumbling’ concrete used in its buildings. By GENE BRODIE, education correspondent

Late start: Link Secondary, on Croydon Road in Sutton, is closed at least until next week

The Link Secondary School on Croydon Road is the latest to be affected by concerns over RAAC, the lightweight construction material that has forced the closure of more than 100 schools across the country.

Inside Croydon yesterday revealed exclusively that Beckmead Park Academy, a special needs school on Monks Orchard Road, had contacted parents and carers to advise that there may be RAAC on their sites and that they need a DfE safety inspection before the school can begin its new term.

The closure of the Link school and Beckmead Park because of the potential risk of dangerously weakened structures collapsing around pupils and staff comes despite a statement from Croydon Council last week that claimed that there were no issues with RAAC – reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete – at any of the borough’s maintained schools.

Fewer than 20 of Croydon’s 90 schools are “maintained”, and in local authority control, while the majority, such as Beckmead, have been academised.

Link Secondary is part of Orchard Hill College and Academy Trust that educates up to 148 pupils aged from four to 18 across three “small and friendly” sites – primary, secondary and sixth form.

The Orchard Hill Trust also runs a number of other schools, including Addington Valley Academy in Croydon, though there has been no reports of any of those being affected by RAAC closures.

Situated just on the Sutton side of the Croydon borough boundary, the Link schools specialise in providing education for children who have speech, language and communication difficulties and, they say, provide “placements for students from a wide range of local authorities”. That usually includes several from Croydon families.

Link has been closed after RAAC was found in the school hall. There are hopes that the secondary site will be able to open from next Monday, September 11, a week late.

Inside Croydon approached Orchard Hill Trust, but no response had been received by the time of publication.

Nationally, the rumbling RAAC row today saw reports that the Tories’ then Education Secretary, Michael Gove, axed plans for rebuilding works at 13 of the schools which have been forced to close this week due to concerns over dangerously degraded concrete.

And the Daily Mirror has discovered that £1million from the schools building fund had been paid to an IT company which employs Michael Keegan, the husband of the current Education Secretary, Gillian “Fucking good job” Keegan.

In Croydon, meanwhile, the Tory-run council’s propaganda department has been accused of deliberately misleading parents, carers, teachers and school staff by issuing a statement on Friday that said, “All Croydon’s local authority maintained schools have been surveyed as required and will be open as normal at the start of the autumn term.”

What the council failed to mention was that, of Croydon’s 90 schools, primaries and secondary, fewer than 20 remain under local authority control. “The council statement was even less than half true,” a Katharine Street source told Inside Croydon.

Rattled: Education Secretary Gillian Keegan

Following decades of effective privatisation of the nation’s education system, the vast majority of Croydon’s schools have been academised, and so fall outside the council’s direct control.

Many of these schools are using buildings that were constructed between the 1950s and 1980s, when RAAC was a commonly used construction material, but one which, it is now known, is prone to crumble and collapse after decades of use.

It is understood that in addition to Beckmead, at least one other school in Croydon has had to implement contingencies for closure or part-closure and remote studying while the situation over the possible use of RAAC in its buildings is resolved.

Inside Croydon approached Croydon Council, offering it an opportunity to come clean about the true extent of use of RAAC in all Croydon state schools – academies and others.

We have received no response.


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