Education secretary Gillian Keegan has revealed 156 schools have been told to partially or fully close buildings because of fears over concrete which could suddenly collapse.

The education secretary said: “For scale and context, there are 22,500 schools, we’re talking about 156, so most parents should not be worried about this at all.

“We’ve done a lot of work on this in the last few years and most parents should not be concerned.

“But, for those 156 schools, 52 already have mitigation in place and we will provide more updates on the 104 as we get it.”