Council completes initial safety inspections on 60 Norfolk schools 

Initial safety inspections of ceilings at 60 Norfolk schools have now been completed, with no further school or class closures needed. A small number of schools require follow-up checks where specialist equipment is needed to reach inaccessible areas.

Norfolk County Council commissioned the inspections at the start of the new academic year, following the partial collapse of a lath and plaster ceiling at an academy led by Synergy Education Trust.

Whilst the material alone is not a cause for concern, ceilings may be at risk of collapse if the lath and plaster is damaged. Lath and plaster ceilings are often above suspended ceilings in schools, so damage cannot be seen on a visual inspection alone.

The council initially arranged inspections at 23 maintained schools, where it knew the material was present. These inspections were then extended to a further 37 schools, where lath and plaster could be present because of the age of the building.

The checks prompted the closure of Avenue Junior School for three days and one class at Parkside School, in Norwich, also closed for a day. Fifteen schools, of the 60 inspected, require immediate work on parts of their ceilings.

Councillor Penny Carpenter, Cabinet Member for Children Services, said: "The safety of children and staff always has to come first, so it was important that we carried out these checks as soon as this issue came to light.

"I want to thank our school leaders and staff for their support with this and the huge efforts some have made to keep open or reopen their schools. We're sorry for the inconvenience but we had to reassure ourselves of the safety of our children.

"We will now be working to make repairs at the 15 schools where they are needed and will get these done as quickly as we can, whilst minimising any disruption to children's learning.

"We've already notified the Department for Education of this issue, but we will now be writing to them with details of our findings and highlighting the additional financial pressure this will place on our school capital budget."

The council is still calculating the cost of the maintenance work needed because of the inspections.

Regular visual inspections take place at all of Norfolk's maintained schools, in addition to day-to-day checks carried out by the schools themselves. Some schools also sign up to a Building Maintenance Partnership scheme, to manage the regular maintenance of the buildings which provides additional checks. This is in line with the inspection programme in other local authorities, but the council will look at whether future additional checks are needed, because of this latest issue.

Academies are responsible for their own maintenance programme and the council has written to trusts to notify them of this issue.

Despite these needs, all schools remain open and have appropriate measures in place to ensure a safe and effective learning environment for pupils. The 15 schools that require work are:

• Avenue Junior School
• The Parkside School
• Freethorpe Community Primary and Nursery School
• Bacton Primary School
• Brooke VC CE Primary School
• Hainford VC Primary School
• Woodton Primary School
• Horning Community Primary School
• Ludham Primary School and Nursery
• Terrington St. John Primary School
• Tilney St. Lawrence Community Primary School
• Ellingham CE VC Primary School
• Walpole Highway Primary School
• St. George's Primary and Nursery School
• Hevingham Primary School