Priti with children from Hatfield Peverel St Andrews Junior School
RAAC school update visits
This week Witham MP, Priti Patel, revisited three RAAC affected schools within the constituency after significant progress has been made in getting pupils back into schools with the support of Essex County Council.
Firstly, visiting Thurstable School on Tuesday 10th October with Education Minister Baroness Barran, Priti met with headteacher Mr James Ketley to discuss the progress in arranging temporary accommodation which should be in use later this month.
On Wednesday 11th, Priti visited Hatfield Place, which has been used by pupils from Hatfield Peverel St Andrews Junior School following the full closure of the school at the start of September due to RAAC. During the visit, Priti spoke with headteacher Mrs Rebecca Black for an update on how the school term has been going following the move into Hatfield Place.
Following the morning visit to Hatfield Peverel, Priti also visited Honywood Community Science School in Coggeshall in the afternoon to meet with headteacher Mr James Saunders. During her visit, she saw some of the temporary classrooms in operation, which have allowed all pupils bar year nines to return to face to face learning onsite at the school.
Commenting on her visits, Priti said: “It is testament to the hard work of our local headteachers in conjunction with Essex County Council that only a few weeks after the start of term we are already seeing the infrastructure in place to allow students to return back to school lessons onsite.
I appreciate the disruption these closures due to RAAC have caused, and will continue to work closely with our local schools to ensure they have the funding and support they require.“
