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One parent has told Sky News they have been warned “disruption will continue until 2025, or they may have to go to a new location altogether”.

Patrick Moore’s daughter is due to go back to Crossflats Primary School in Bradford next week. 

He said parents had been informed by email “48 hours ago” that limited-life RAAC was found in some parts of the school building meant the closure of some areas. 

“They are losing some computer rooms and cooking facilities, we’ve been told,” he said, “so they’ll set up terrapins on some of the playing fields.”

In the headteacher email, parents were informed the school would reopen “as normal” next week, but Mr Moore said his daughter was “a bit anxious” about returning. 

“It’s just been a really hard few years for this age-group, with the pandemic and now this. 

“She’s also disappointed because the school was meant to be getting a swimming pool next year and that seems unlikely.”

“But I think the real scandal is why we’re only finding out about this now? That’s the real question here.”

School building closures prompted by concrete failing ‘with no warning’

We’ve just had an update from the Department for Education with some more information about the decision to partially or fully close over 150 schools due to unsafe concrete.

The department says it’s announcement yesterday came after it was “made aware of a small number of cases” in both educational settings and elsewhere of that type of RAAC (reinforced aerated autoclaved concrete) having “failed with no warning”.

They also said that “some of these cases are very recent”.

“Recent cases have reduced our confidence that schools with RAAC are safe for use and it’s absolutely right we take a more cautious approach,” they added.

And schools minister Nick Gibb admitted this morning that a beam collapse at a school prompted this “caution”.

He told the BBC: “A beam that had no sign… that it was a critical risk and was thought to be safe collapsed.”