It has been announced that funding of up to £1billion for some 50 school building projects in England is being promised by UK Prime Minister.
It was also announced that there will be a further £560million for repairs to existing crumbling school buildings.
The PM said: “It is important that we lay the foundations for a country where everyone has the opportunity to succeed”.
But head teachers in the country said that the National Audit Office had identified a backlog of £6.7bn of repairs that is needed across the 21,000 schools throughout England.
The Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, also addressed whether there would be social distancing when all pupils return to school in the autumn.
He said: “It’s not about 1 metre it’s not about 2 metres.
“Safety was based on reducing the number of transmission points within schools for Covid-19 infections”.
It would mean whole classes becoming “bubbles” separated from other pupils, he suggested, with a promise to address the more “complex” arrangements needed for secondary schools , where pupils “criss-cross” between different sets and subjects.
He also promised that there would be comprehensive plans in terms of both testing and tracking.
The school rebuilding programme will tackle the problems of ageing, dilapidated school buildings and also the need to create extra spaces for the rising number of secondary age pupils.
