A Gateshead headteacher said her school is 'on its knees' due to desperately needing repairs, which have previously been declined.
Kate Chisholm, Executive headteacher at Oakfield Schools Federation, told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that the schools' walls and roof are rotting, asbestos is present in the building, and the school yard regularly floods due to problems with the drains. But she claims that the school was declined a new school build last year because "it wasn't deemed to be in disrepair enough".
It comes as a report by the public spending watchdog identified that about 700,000 children in England attend schools requiring major repairs following years of underfunding, with poor conditions directly affecting pupil attainment and teacher retention. The National Audit Office (NAO) found that around 24,000 school buildings, or 38% of the total, are currently beyond their estimated design lifespan.
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NAO head Gareth Davies said that, despite assessing the possibility of building collapse or failure causing death or injury as "critical and very likely" in 2021, "the Department for Education has not been able to reduce this risk".
Oakfield Schools Federation, which has an infant and junior school in Gateshead, is believed to be operating from buildings which are over 50 years old.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Miss Chisholm said: "They're full of asbestos, both schools. We can't do many works in the schools without lots of cost because of the asbestos in the walls. Last year we had a survey done by the DfE because we did have a new school bid in and we realised that we need to have £5m spent on the buildings to get them in full working order."
She added: "The local authority have done the very best that they can to ensure our buildings are kept legal and it's through no fault of their own. It's just that there is a lack of centralised funding, a legacy of lack of centralised funding from the government over the last few decades, which has meant that they haven't been able to maintain them up to the standard that I know they would wish to because there isn't the money to spend.
"You can only spend it once and taking into account that my school was declined a new school build last year, because it wasn't deemed to be in disrepair enough goes to show the schools that were granted the new school bid were obviously in a far worse repair than mine and mine is on its knees basically."
In its submission ahead of the 2020 Spending Review, the department said it needed £5.3 billion a year of capital funding to maintain schools and mitigate the most serious risks of building failure. Due to the time it would take the department to expand its school rebuilding programme, it requested an average of £4 billion a year between 2021 and 2025.
However, the Treasury subsequently allocated an average of £3.1 billion, leading bodies such as local authorities and multi-academy trusts to use limited funding on the most urgent problems at the expense of general remedial work to prevent building failure in the future, the report said.
The money includes funding to rebuild 500 schools in a 10-year programme, but the department was found to be making slower-than-expected progress on awarding contracts.
Miss Chisholm said: "The drains are as old as the buildings so we spend on those approximately £15,000 a year having the drains fixed. There's a stench that goes through both buildings from the drains because they're so old. And the infant yard floods regularly because of the tree roots that go through the drains so we're constantly having to evacuate children from our prefabs because the water will get about a foot high in the yard.
"We do have two prefabs on the yard but they have been deemed past their useful life when the DfE came. There's holes in the walls, they're rotting, the roof is rotting and they're very damp inside and out and they do smell as well. So there's lots going on."
The report also identified that a major cause of concern is the prevalence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), which is prone to failure and was regularly used between the 1950s and mid-1990s. The department has been considering the potential risk posed by RAAC since 2018, following a roof collapse at a school in Kent, but potential problems in many schools remain unknown.
The NAO acknowledged it can be challenging for the department to understand and oversee safety issues due to size and complexity of the school estate. The department has expanded its data collection programme, distributed warnings to bodies responsible for school safety, and issued guidance on identifying RAAC.
The NAO said the focus is now on 14,900 schools built during the period when RAAC was used in construction. Of these, 42% have confirmed they have undertaken work to identify RAAC, but potential risks are yet to be identified in the remaining schools.
By May this year, 572 schools had been confirmed as potentially containing RAAC. This includes two North East schools which had to temporarily close earlier this month after RAAC was identified in its buildings.
St John Vianney Catholic Primary School in West Denton and St Columba's Primary Catholic School in Wallsend have since teamed up with local schools and community buildings to provide face-to-face teaching to pupils while work to the schools are carried out.
A spokesperson said: "Nothing is more important than the safety of pupils and teachers which is why we have been significantly investing in transforming schools up and down the country.
"We are investing in 500 projects for new and refurbished school buildings through our school rebuilding programme. On top of this, we have allocated over £15 billion since 2015 for keeping schools safe and operational, including £1.8 billion committed for 2023-24.
"It is the responsibility of those who run our schools: academy trusts, local authorities, and voluntary-aided school bodies; who speak to their schools’ day-to-day to manage the maintenance of their schools and to alert us if there is a concern with a building.
"We will always provide support on a case-by-case basis if we are alerted to a serious safety issue by these responsible bodies."
