PUPILS at a school closed while asbestos is safely removed from the site may be offered face-to-face lessons at nearby schools.

The King Edmund School in Rochford was closed on November 14 after contractors brought in by the Department for Education (DfE) to lead the construction of a new 30-classroom building discovered “traces of asbestos” on the site.

The secondary school had been set to reopen on January 3 – but is now facing a further three weeks closure after the DfE reported delays making the site safe.

READ MORE

“We are currently looking at making use of other school sites to provide face-to-face education for some KES students,” headteacher Jonathan Osborne told parents.

“This will prioritise those who are taking exams this year, but we are working rapidly on ways to make this offer as wide as possible.”

Full details are set to be announced by the school on Friday.

Asbestos was found in the rubble of an old school building which had been bulldozed in May while crews preparing to begin construction on a new 30-classroom school block.

The DfE, which is solely responsible for the project and clearing the asbestos, says workers found traces of asbestos at greater depth in the soil than first expected.

It’s not yet clear if this asbestos is linked to the demolished building, or material that was already in the ground when the original building was constructed.

“Alongside this, whilst the rubble removal continues to progress, the icy conditions have meant that Oracle has been unable to significantly scale up the pace of the removal,” Luke Kennedy, deputy director of the DfE’s school rebuilding division, said in a letter to Mr Osborne.

“Allowing for some further bad weather, we are now aiming for the asbestos removal works and testing to be completed by January 20.”

Mr Osborne says the school continues to push the DfE to reopen the school site “as soon as possible”.

He added that the DfE only informed the school of the delay on Wednesday of last week.

The school says the government body had given the impression the re-opening of the school remained on track prior to that.