Schools minister Nick Gibb said he would be happy for his nieces and nephews to sit in a classroom with beams propping up the ceiling.

This morning the minister was asked on BBC Breakfast what he would say to parents about their concerns.

Gibb said: "They should raise concerns with the school in the first instance to see if they're satisfied with what the school is doing."

Image source, PA Media

More now from schools minister Nick Gibb, who's been on Radio 4's Today programme.

Gibb was asked if the Department for Education had bid to rebuild as many as 200 English schools in 2021, and whether Rishi Sunak - who was chancellor at the time - cut the amount of funding available.

Gibb says yes, they did want to rebuild and refurbish that many, but the Treasury had to balance bids for funding from across the government.

We know that Sunak approved cash for 50 schools to be rebuilt in 2021.

Since Sunak became prime minister, an additional £4bn has been allocated in revenue funding for schools in England, which means £59.6bn will be in the budget next year, a "record amount", says Gibb.

Image source, PA Media

School's minister Nick Gibb is doing morning interviews on the concrete safety issue, and has told BBC Breakfast that the government is waiting on questionnaires sent to schools to see how prevalent RAAC concrete is.

He said: "We started these questionnaires in March 2022, the vast majority of schools have responded and have not identified RAAC in schools.

"From those surveys we now know that 156 schools have RAAC and in 52 of them we've already taken action, where it was regarded as critical."

Gibb explained that the government is "proactively seeking more evidence about RAAC" and has discovered more schools containing the material in the process.

He added that has resulted in new guidance where even non-critical RAAC has been taken out of use.

As many schools shut their doors over safety risks associated with RAAC, a number are returning to remote lessons until their buildings are made safe.

So far, at least 10 schools have decided to introduce some year groups to online learning across England, with eight of those in Essex.

Those schools are:

Honywood School, Colchester in Essex, Clacton County High School in Essex, Thurstable School and Sixth Form in Essex, The Appleton School in Essex, Roding Valley High School in Loughton Essex, Thomas Lord Audley School, Colchester in Essex, The Bromfords School in Wickford Essex, Wyburns Primary School in Rayleigh Essex, Ferryhill School in County Durham and Scalby School in Scarborough

The government is yet to publish a full list of schools in England affected by RAAC - it says it will do so later this week - but in the meantime, we have been keeping our own list as more parents and schools get in touch. You can find that list here.

The disruption to learning would not be so great had schools had a little more warning, says Hina Robinson, chair of governors and parent of a child at Wyburns primary school in Rayleigh, Essex.

Speaking to the Today programme on Radio 4, she said if schools had learned about the safety concerns before last week then preparations could have been made to support children returning for the new year.

Many children at Wyburns are returning to online learning, which Robinson says is "very difficult for the children," but even those who are able to be on site face disruption as "classrooms are set up in places that aren't meant to be classrooms".

She knows of some schools that were partially closed due to unsafe RAAC in December, including her eldest daughter's secondary school.

She questions why the sudden change in policy if the risks were known about before and is angry that children have been in unsafe buildings until now.

Someone who can give us perspective as both a parent and school governor is Hina Robinson, from Rayleigh, Essex.

She told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 that her school had carried out two surveys last term and was told there was no danger, until Thursday when the school was suddenly told there was a safety issue.

The Department for Education has not provided engineers to the school, she said, but has passed on some numbers, except none of them are available.

That means getting props to support the buildings or other remedial work is not happening any time soon.

"The focus is on 'how can we get children back into learning in a building of some sort'," Robinson said, adding some children will return to online learning until a space can be found.

Safety consultant Damini Sharma has told BBC Breakfast that RAAC - the aerated concrete at the centre of the current problems - is not really concrete in the traditional sense.

"It's being referred to as a concrete product but it's not actually concrete, it's a very lightweight, porous material that was used predominantly from the 50s to the 80s," she said.

Sharma explained the main concern with it is that it is "not really suitable for permanent structures".

She went onto explain that they didn't have the information that we have now about the lifespan of RAAC when it was first used.

"In the 80s, when the first RAAC panels started to fail, is when they started to realise they had a 30-year lifespan."

Image source, Reuters

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has defended going on a family holiday to Spain as the RAAC concrete crisis hit schools.

Last night aides said she was in Spain between 25 August and last Thursday, according to the PA news agency, when the government announced that unsafe RAAC had been found in more than 100 English schools.

Keegan said she has “always worked remotely” and continued to organise a response while in Spain for her father’s birthday.

She added this was her first opportunity to go on holiday after dealing with a teachers’ strike and GCSE and A-level results, and added that she virtually chaired a response team "every day" while on vacation.

The revelation capped off a day where the education secretary has been recorded by a TV crew complaining about getting no credit for dealing with the RAAC issue.

It seems like concerns over RAAC concrete in public buildings only bubbled to the surface last week, but that's not the case:

• A ceiling containing RAAC panels collapsed at a primary school in Kent in 2018
• In 2019, an official advisory body - the Standing Committee on Structural Safety - said RAAC was a “significant risk”
• New guidance was issued in 2021 about how to manage RAAC
• In 2021, the Department for Education is said to have asked the Treasury for more money to rebuild schools in England, but the programme was cut from 100 a year to 50
• RAAC guidance was updated in 2022, and the DofE sent out a questionnaire to schools asking them to identify structures made from the material
• Late last month a concrete beam made with RAAC collapsed - although it's not known whether this was in a school or other building
• Last Thursday it was revealed that more than 150 schools in England had identified RAAC structures

Here’s a quick recap of what you missed yesterday:

• The government said it will publish a list of the schools affected by a type of potentially dangerous concrete later this week
• Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said 95% of questionnaires sent to schools about their buildings had been returned, but she was concerned about the 5% that had not
• Keegan came in for criticism after she was recorded by a TV crew using crude language to complain about the lack of credit given her for tackling the RAAC issue
• Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said it’s "completely and utterly wrong" to suggest he’d overseen budget cuts that were now leading to issues in the structural integrity of school buildings
• More than 100 schools have been fully or partially closed due to the risk of crumbling concrete - or reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC)
• The UK government has been “engaging urgently” with the devolved administrations to support and understand RAAC in schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Rob Corp
Live reporter

Good morning. We're back to bring you further coverage of the RAAC concrete issue which has led to dozens of schools in England having to start the new academic year having to deal with potentially unsafe buildings.

Dozens are either fully or partially shut as they contain the crumbling concrete material.

Yesterday, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said around 50 schools had already undergone mitigation work - and at least another 104 are confirmed to have RAAC.

Last night Keegan came under fire after it emerged in an interview with Sky, external that she went on holiday to Spain at the end of August while the concrete crisis unfolded.

Keegan also slipped up after an interview with ITV News yesterday, while still on camera. In a sweary outburst she criticised others for having “done nothing” about the crisis.

I’m here with reporters Gem O'Reilly and Jacqueline Howard, as we bring you the latest twists and turns of this story.