Hundreds of schools are queueing for cash to replace leaky roofs and failing heating. Yet each year only 50 will get money to rebuild

• England’s crumbling schools ‘a risk to life’

When it rains, the pupils at Wales high school, south Yorkshire, know to look out for numerous obstacles as they move around the building - buckets, lots of buckets.

“On a rainy day, it’s commonplace to see a dozen buckets around the school,” said headteacher Pepe Di’Iasio. “You can’t do anything long term. We’re just patching over the roof and doing the various things that we can. We have flat roofs, asbestos throughout the place and an old energy system that uses heavy amounts. We have a building that we heat up every day and the heating goes straight up out of the roof.”