Staff and pupils use of Asbestos Materials in School Science Lessons

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1 Staff and pupils use of Asbestos Materials in School Science Lessons School staff and pupils have been exposed to asbestos fibres from using asbestos materials in classroom lessons. These include the use of asbestos cloth in the form of oven gloves, fire blankets and welding screen. The use of AIB, millboard and asbestos cement as Bunsen burner mats, soldering mats, ironing board stands, fume cupboards, display boards and blackboards. In addition asbestos boards were cut, drilled and sanded in carpentry classes. The use of asbestos wool in science classes was widespread and because of its friable nature and the manner in which it was handled it would have released significant levels of asbestos fibres, the rooms would have been contaminated and the occupants exposed. The Nuffield Foundation school text book from 1966 advised the use of asbestos wool in classroom experiments. In 1966 the Chief Medical Officer of the Factories Inspectorate warned the Department for Education about the particular vulnerability of children to asbestos and advocated the total prohibition of asbestos wool in schools. He also considered that schools could not provide adequate exhaust ventilation for the sawing and drilling of asbestos. (See Annex) In 1967 the Department for Education issued an Administrative Memo warning schools of the dangers of asbestos in schools but they ignored the expert advice they had been given and allowed its continued use. A Department for Education official wrote a memo expressing his concern that the Department had issued guidance to schools that ignored the expert advice. (See Annex) Asbestos wool was still in use in some schools in the 1980 s, some twenty years after this. Asbestos surveys have shown that Bunsen burner mats, ironing boards and asbestos fume cupboards are still in use in some schools. The legacy of these exposures will be seen for many years to come, and already a number of science teachers and their assistants have died of mesothelioma or have pleural plaques. If they have been exposed to asbestos then so have their pupils. The following are two examples: Statement from a solicitor about a science teacher suffering from mesothelioma: My client was a science teacher in secondary schools.. She recalled handling asbestos bunsen burner mats on a daily basis for demonstration of experiments and in her second school she recalled regularly collecting up the classes' bench mats to take them to a storeroom. The bench mats were often broken and crumbly and released a lot of dust and fibres. My client recalled there were asbestos fume cupboards in her second school but she had very limited contact with them. In the third school where she worked she remembered using mats for demonstration purposes but not collecting them up. 1 Science teacher exposed to asbestos: He taught chemistry for 34 years in the same secondary school in the South East, rising to be assistant head. He retired at 60 in 2006 and died in Sept 2007 aged 61, just five months after he was diagnosed with mesothelioma. As a chemistry teacher he was exposed to asbestos in protective mats for work benches (many of which were in disrepair), asbestos gauzes (on the top of tripods), asbestos wool (used for experiments), platinised asbestos (used for regular demonstrations in class), asbestos bungs, paper 1 Lees personal correspondence 2007

2 and string (used for experiments) and fire blankets. These were used until sometime between 1979 and 1984 when the LA instructed that asbestos was to be removed from all its schools. Until 2000 there was asbestos inlay in the gas blowing bench in the preparation room. 2 Annex. Nuffield Foundation School text book. Extract recommending the use of asbestos wool. 2 TES 27 Mar 2009

3 Letter to DFES from Chief Medical Officer of the Factories Inspectorate 1967

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5 DFES Administrative Memo allowing the continued use of asbestos materials in schools.

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7 Memo from DFES official expressing concern at the Department ignoring expert advice. Michael Lees 12 th ovember 2011