A senior civil servant has apologised for disruption at a secondary school that closed because of asbestos.
The King Edmund School in Rochford, Essex, was shut between November and late January.
The school's 1,570 students were taught off site or via virtual learning.
The Department for Education (DfE) permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood was updating the Public Accounts Committee in Westminster on the condition of school buildings.
Ms Acland-Hood said: "To the parents and pupils at King Edmund, on behalf of the department, we are really sorry that happened in that school and we are learning lessons from it."
King Edmund was chosen as one of 400 schools that would benefit from a government-funded rebuilding programme.
However, contractors discovered asbestos while tearing down an old building in November to make way for the new multimillion-pound two-storey block.
