Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said she chose to take a “very cautious approach” and close schools just days before the new term after instances over the summer where crumbling concrete had “failed” in settings previously classified as non-critical.
Speaking for the first time since the schools crisis emerged, she told Sky News on Monday: “What happened over the summer is we had three cases – not in schools, some in schools, some not in schools – and I sent structural engineers out to see them, somewhere in commercial settings, and some in different jurisdictions.
“And when they went out to see them, they thought there’d been a failure, but it was in a non-critical setting. So that was new evidence and new information…
“So I decided to take a very cautious approach. And I knew it was going to be difficult because, you know, obviously, for parents, for teachers, this coming so late in August, but that’s when we got the evidence that a panel had failed in a roof that had previously been classified as non-critical.”
She added: “I wasn’t willing to take the risk. It was just one panel, but it was in a roof that had been assessed as non-critical.”
Speaking for the first time since the schools crisis emerged, she told Sky News on Monday: “What happened over the summer is we had three cases – not in schools, some in schools, some not in schools – and I sent structural engineers out to see them, somewhere in commercial settings, and some in different jurisdictions.
“And when they went out to see them, they thought there’d been a failure, but it was in a non-critical setting. So that was new evidence and new information…
“So I decided to take a very cautious approach. And I knew it was going to be difficult because, you know, obviously, for parents, for teachers, this coming so late in August, but that’s when we got the evidence that a panel had failed in a roof that had previously been classified as non-critical.”
She added: “I wasn’t willing to take the risk. It was just one panel, but it was in a roof that had been assessed as non-critical.”
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NewsTranscript
00:00 A number of schools have been forced to close just days before they were set to reopen for
00:05 the new school term. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said that she has taken a very cautious
00:12 approach, after judging over the summer that previous buildings that were judged as non-critical
00:19 have still got issues such as a panel falling down and she said this is a very cautious
00:24 approach and they're going to try their best not to cause any more disruption to the school
00:29 yeah!