Coronavirus in Scotland: Secondary school pupil return to full-time teaching after Easter holiday could be confirmed today

The Scottish Government is expected to confirm on Tuesday whether all secondary school pupils can return to classrooms full-time after the Easter holidays.

A specially established group, which advises the Scottish Government met on Monday (April 5) to discuss the matter – and later on Tuesday, a decision is expected to be announced.

On March 24, Scotland's Education Secretary told MSPs there is still a “certain amount of uncertainty” about whether all secondary pupils will be able to return to school full-time after Easter.

John Swinney said the Scottish Government’s “central planning assumption” was that all students would be back in school full-time after the holiday period.

But he said for secondary schools to have all students back in, this would need the relaxation of rules in place which currently enforce two-metre social distancing in classrooms.

The Scottish Government closed schools to most pupils for a second time at the start of this year.

All children are now back in primary schools, but secondary students have so far only been able to spend a limited amount of time in the classroom.

In most local authority areas, the Easter holidays are not due to end until April 19, though in a few council areas children are due to go back earlier on April 12.

The Scottish Government is expected to confirm that all secondary pupils can return to classrooms full-time after Easter holidays.

Mr Swinney has previously said it was likely that adults in schools would still have to stay at least two metres away for each other, and from pupils, and that a “whole variety of other mitigation measures” would also be in place to prevent virus spread.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.