Overview
The following is an excerpt from the 'Asbestos and RAAC Situation Report'. The full report can be accessed and read by opening the attachment at the bottom of this webpage.
In August 2023 contractors employed indirectly by AA Projects came across suspect material during the installation of a new fire alarm system, that was not present on the R&D survey that the contractor had commissioned for the extent of the work.
At this point, the on-site contractors followed standard asbestos awareness training and stopped work, leaving certain ceiling tiles open, which the school asked the company to replace. Immediate testing was ordered including air monitoring from a second company (Oracle Solutions). The results revealed no concerns with air testing but did identify the presence of asbestos in some roof voids, this was believed to be the remnants of previous removals and asbestos leaking as a result of degraded protection surfaces.
During this incident, the school enacted its Asbestos Management Plan and closed off areas suspected of being of high risk whilst further testing was taken.
Following the preliminary testing, there was concern that the problem maybe more widespread and a more extensive survey including swab sampling was made. In the effected areas ceilings were made safe and air testing taken again to ensure safety.
The results of the testing identified low quantities of asbestos material in the ceiling voids across the whole building and some suspect materials in boxed-in pipework. Following discussions with Oracle Solutions it was deemed it safest to close that area of the school and carry out a thorough programme of removal of all identified asbestos.
Oracle Solutions have carried out extensive air monitoring and swab testing to ensure that any contamination was dealt with and to allow restricted safe access to key personnel to decant curriculum supplies, equipment and furniture for safe usage in the new temporary classrooms.
All access to the affected main building was restricted to a small number of site and senior staff. These staff were all inducted by Oracle Solutions staff and are required to check in with the site foreman when requiring access. Access was minimised and only permitted under strict controls and only in agreement with Oracle Solutions.
Following this incident, a number of changes and updates to the way the school manages asbestos have been made.
- The school has stopped using Warwickshire County Council as our default asbestos management company. Their duties have been replaced by Oracle Solutions who are in the process of conducting a management survey. This management survey will inform a new action management plan and risk assessment.
- A new Asbestos Management Plan is being drawn up by Oracle Solutions to reflect the removals through 2023 and 2024.
- Site and ICT Staff have received refresher UKATA Asbestos Awareness Training and Senior Site staff have received UKATA Duty to Manage Asbestos Training.
- Where Project Management companies are engaged by the school, the school will ensure that any asbestos surveys, either visual or R&D, commissioned by them are checked to ensure that they are suitable prior to work starting.
The Village
On the 20th November 2023, the first of 22 temporary classrooms arrived on site. Work to prepare the site for the classrooms was extensive, before they arrived the area has to be cleared of obstacles, fences erected and new vehicle gates installed. Most important of all, the matting needed to create a runway for the crane to move across the site had to be laid. Foundation bases had to be placed into position ready for the first of the buildings. Each of the two classroom units came in five sections, these were then craned in and assembled to form the buildings.
Thank you to all parents who visited us at the first Parental Engagement Session on Thursday 10th October to discuss the building works happening at the school and the plans for re-opening. Our Principal Contractor, Stepnell, who are undertaking the building refurbishment, have set up a Community WhatsApp group should any of you have any questions about the building works and project. If you would like to join this, please scan the QR code from your phone.
We will be sharing project updates, including progress photos with you throughout the next 12 months. At Thursday’s session, we shared some of the early designs for our specialist teaching rooms – science laboratories, food technology rooms and IT suites. Here are some of the designs so you can have a taste of what to expect when the building is in operation again.
Finally, students have been invited to desgin the Health & Safety posters that will be displayed around Stepnell’s hoarding panels on Shelley Avenue. Students have until 25th October to submit their entries. The winning designs will be turned into the official H&S posters for all the community to view on the hoarding during the project. For more details, students can speak to Mrs Grinham.
Stepnell Refurbishment Plans - Presentation - 10.10.2024
Art Competition - Health and Safety
After the recent request for any queries relating to the current school closure, we received the following questions:
When will the Shelley Avenue entrance be reopened?
The Shelley Avenue gate needs to remain closed whilst contractor works is taking place for Health & Safety reasons to protect all staff, students and parents from the works being undertaken relating to asbestos removal and reinstatement works.
Can timetable clashes with travel to Trinity be sorted for year 13 students?
Aylesford are only able to use the Trinity facilities for D&T / Food Technology at the times agreed with Trinity. As we only have 7 students doing Y13 Product Design, re-timetabling their other lessons to try and avoid clashes with other subjects would affect a lot of other Y13 Aylesford students. Aylesford will be running catch up sessions for exam students for them to help them prepare for the Summer exams – work is also set on Synergy for any lessons that are missed so that students can catch up in their independent study time in the library.
Can anything be done about the traffic getting into the school site?
Now that all students are back to face-to-face learning – we have seen an increase in the number of cars trying to access the school site. As most of our year groups are near capacity, this will ultimately result in more traffic. To help us try and manage busy drop off and collection times, we would ask students to try and arrive on foot, by bike or via public transport where at all possible. Please have a little consideration for our neighbours when dropping off children by car in the morning and picking them up at night. In particular, thinking very carefully about parking safely and considerately on some of the streets close to school. Over the next few weeks we will be working with Warwickshire Road Safety to review access arrangements to our car park during peak times for the benefit and safety of all users.
Year 10 Design Technology students haven't been able to do any practical work - when will this be resolved?
Although Year 10 Design and Technology are unable to use the technology facilities, students have covered a considerable amount of the theory part of the course which is worth 50% of their GCSE grade, assessed by an exam paper. Students are also developing their skills in preparation for the practical element and NEA. They have nearly completed 2 practical projects which have involved card modelling; a pizza cutter and an emergency shelter. Both of these projects have included formulation of design brief and specification, anthropometrics, research on computer such as existing examples of shelters and suitable materials, initial ideas sketches and development of ideas, marketing and production methods.
Can there be better communication with parents when a tutor leaves the school?
Absolutely. Heads of Year will now be communicating with parents when a tutor leaves and will provide information regarding the new tutor.
Why are students being given late marks when they are stuck in the congestion trying to get into the school site? Children on late buses are being given late marks - can this be stopped?
Late marks were taken off for those students who were late because of buses arriving late. Congestion is always poor around Warwick, we are unfortunately unable to do anything about this. Over the next few weeks we will be working with Warwickshire Road Safety to review access arrangements to our car park during peak times for the benefit and safety of all users. Unfortunately, congestion and traffic problems are a universal problem for all road users, students, staff and parents alike so please ensure your child arrives to school on time.
What is being done about toilets not being used appropriately and why can't all students use the toilets when they need to?
Staff are monitoring toilets and are not allowing groups of students to go in there at once. Heads of Year are discussing concerns and educating students about the appropriate use of toilets during assemblies. Students can use the toilets freely at break and lunchtime; this has not changed. We now have our new toilets installed. If students have a toilet pass, they may use the toilets more often throughout the day.
During the week of 18th March '24 until Friday 22nd March we ran an ‘Inside the Closed Building’ series where we published images across our social media platforms of the current work being undertaken in the closed areas of Aylesford. You can find the images and the commentary below.
Today’s images feature the area most visitors will be familiar with – the main reception. As you can see, all ceilings are removed and services have fallen through. Reinstating these areas to compliant standards requires more than just affixing a new ceiling covering. For example, modern regulations require all the cables shown to be contained with non-combustible containment to prevent premature collapse in case of a fire – potentially saving lives. Similarly, many of our electrical circuits have been damaged, or removed, to facilitate the removal and much of the site must be rewired or re-tested to ensure it is safe for reinstatement.
The final image shows what was formerly our Student Services hub. Again, to reinstate this to a usable space, many modern requirements must be met. Much of the timber ceiling framing is no longer suitable for carrying a modern ceiling finish, nor the insulation required for today’s building standards – all of which is being meticulously designed by our specialist contractors. This area also demonstrates some integrity issues to the floors and ceilings, which must be remediated before any reinstatement can take place.
Inside many of our rooms, evidence of previous layout changes have become evident and service ducts/risers exposed. In the first image, a doorway blocked up during a previous refurbishment has been re-exposed and a riser opened. This has been extensive, but ultimately necessary, to ensure any contaminated detritus that may be trapped in the voids is uncovered. Prior to the 2000s, asbestos regulation was not as comprehensive as it is now – so work done prior to this may no longer meet today’s requirements and must be dealt with to provide a safe ongoing environment.
Some science laboratories have required even more extensive works. The floor coverings in many rooms need to be removed to facilitate repairs to the building structure. Although the floor covering here is modern, it needs to be removed in a controlled manner as the original floor covering encased in the screed below may contain traces of asbestos bitmen. In day-to-day use, this is a harmless product, but if it needs to be removed or entered, then it must be undertaken by licensed contractors. To facilitate this floor removal, gas engineers have isolated all the outlets to this room, electricians have disconnected the power and all the benches and teacher’s platform will be removed. This adds another difficult and costly element to our reinstatement project.
The third image highlights the damage to the ground floor ceiling. This means that the first floor above it needs to be removed to allow for structural steel works to take place.
Today’s first image is a photograph taken from above our main hall. These loft area walkways will be removed during refurbishment, as they are no longer safe for contractors to walk across. As can be seen, the main hall is busy with storage of equipment. Both our Main Hall and Gym have provided valuable hubs for equipment storage - however the constant movement of furniture and storage of all manner of equipment has inevitably taken its toll on the sprung floors and these will be refurbished prior to re-opening.
Similarly to the attic above the hall, the second image shows an attic that runs above some of our offices and the Bridge toilets. A key element to bringing the building to standard is to ensure separation and compartmentation in case of fire. As shown here, a fire breaking out in an office to the left could easily spread through the attic and into the toilets, intervention room and the escape corridor – something that simply must be changed before re-opening. Our team of architects, building control specialists and fire safety professionals are designing a reinstatement process that will greatly reduce these risks throughout the estate.
Taken from what pre-2011 students will remember as “Reception” as you can see, all ceiling finishes, lighting and pipe coverings have been removed across the site. The blue bins contain potentially contaminated waste being transported to the specialist skips – note this waste is enclosed within the containers in line with stringent waste transfer requirements, allowing this photograph to be taken safely. The grey block in front of the blue containers is a preserved sample of the floor blocks; being used as a sample for engineers assessing the integrity of the floor structure.
The second image is the area to the rear of the Main Hall. At the time of documenting, the Technology block was being cleared of asbestos – the black correx boards at the rear are covering the asbestos waste transfer enclosures to prevent access. The asbestos must be removed by licenced contractors under controlled conditions. Once the work in a specific area has been completed, an independent contractor inspects the work and deems the area safe for reoccupation.
We are fortunate to still have a small number of rooms which do not require removal works, or are not subject to structural works. However, these rooms are being used to store the astonishing amount of curriculum and administration material required by the school. Despite best efforts, following reoccupation, the process of reorganization and redistribution of all equipment will be extensive and time consuming.
The second image is the stairs to our Bridge – like all our other stairwells, these are now clad with scaffolding to facilitate safe access to the asbestos professionals who have cleared the voids. This work has inevitably caused damage to much of the site. The scaffolding is required to ensure safe working – however, its construction results in much redecoration being required. Similarly, the removal of ceilings and voids and the multitude of objects concealed within, can lead to other services failing; in this photograph an optical fibre - a key trunk for the schools ICT infrastructure – has become entangled in timber and has failed through the removal works. This requires specialist repair to reinstate connectivity to our key services prior to any reopening.
The third image is looking across at the rear car park and original entrance, much of the space is currently taken up by contractors. There are two skips for waste, contractors’ storage and welfare unit and asbestos decontamination units for the removal staff. This compound will grow as the reinstatement contractors begin on site. Due to the high H&S risk that asbestos removal works and construction works poses, the Shelley Avenue Gate, which goes directly into the contractors’ compound needs to remain closed to mitigate any risk to students, parents, staff and any individuals that need to come onto site whilst the work is taking place.
November 2024
