EXCLUSIVE: GMB union, which surveyed more than 4,500 school support staff including teaching assistants and caretakers, found more than half work in buildings with a leaky roof
Almost a quarter of school staff work in buildings with asbestos problems, damp, and mould, an alarming survey has found.
GMB union, which polled more than 4,500 school support staff including teaching assistants and caretakers this month, also found more than half work in buildings with a leaky roof. A further 44% said they had worked in school buildings with cracked walls.
Asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999 but it remains present in many school buildings constructed before the turn of the century. GMB’s survey found 23% of its members who were polled said they had worked in schools which had problems with asbestos – despite the clear health risks of asbestos.
The grim findings are set to be discussed on Monday at the TUC’s annual conference in Brighton – bringing together the union movement – with a motion on school support staff pay.
Stacey Booth, GMB National Officer, said: “School support staff have been repugnantly underpaid for years as they educate and care for our children. Meanwhile they are forced to work in unsafe, leaky buildings – riddled with asbestos and mould.”
She added: “GMB members will today call on the TUC to back their fight for fair pay and an end to academisation. But we call on ministers to invest in our school buildings and our children’s futures like the last Labour Government did.”
GMB’s survey of members also found 17% said they lacked books for children of all ages while almost a third – 28% – said they lacked pens. And a further 20% said their buildings had no sports field.
Emma Fair, a school worker in south London, said: “I’ve worked in schools for years and they simply have no money. In one school we went two months without hot water – it’s completely unsafe and unhygienic. Kids need to be able to get clean.
“Damp and mould is everywhere. Normally they just put notice boards in front of it because they can’t fix it. We’ve had decking in the playground collapse and the head put milk crates around the hole to stop children falling in. It’s so dangerous. One school had so many leaks in the classroom roof there were buckets next to every desk. One day the entire roof collapsed. It was carnage.”
The findings also follow a crisis in the school sector in the summer of 2023 with three experiencing sudden roof collapses due to reinforced autoclave aerated concrete (RAAC).
Last year the former Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledged to strip the crumbling concrete from all schools and colleges by the next general election.