Children ‘might not return to schools on January 18’

SCHOOLS may be kept closed beyond the middle of next month if the new strain of coronavirus is not contained.

Ni cola Sturgeon raised the possibility yesterday while insisting pupils will return to classrooms ‘if at all possible’ on January 18.

Scientists are investigating whether the new strain spreads faster among schoolchildren.

The First Minister is under growing pressure to commit to a date for reopening schools.

Children across the country are now off for their Christmas holidays. They had been due to return to classrooms on January 5 but will now begin home learning on January 11, with schools set to open the following week.

However, Miss Sturgeon failed to give a categorical pledge on this, amid fears the new mutant strain of the virus can spread more easily in children.

At Holyrood yesterday, she said experts were looking at how the new strain of Covid-19 affects young people, with ministers told ‘we cannot be definitive about it right now’.

She told MSPs this uncertainty was why the Government had taken a ‘precautionary approach to the start of the new term’.

Miss Sturgeon said: ‘We will have arrangements for blended learning for as long as it is necessary – although we hope that will be as short a time as possible.

‘We have already taken steps to help people in more deprived communities with online access, and in other ways.

‘We will continue to do that, particularly if we are facing a lengthier period – although I hope that we will not – when children are not in school full-time.’

Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservative group at Holyrood, said: ‘[The closure of schools] doesn’t just impact on their [parents’] family life, it affects their ability to work and pay the bills.

‘They will be rightly concerned to have just heard the First Minister say that the January 18 return date is under review.

‘ Can the First Minister give parents at home an idea of how likely it will be that children will return to classrooms from January 18, or do they need to start preparing now for a long-haul of blended learning at home?’

Miss Sturgeon said: ‘I will try to do what I have tried to do every day over the past ten months and that is give people as much clarity as I possibly can.

‘We will, if it is at all possible, get schools back open on January 18.

‘ That has been a priority, it continues to be a priority for all the reasons we understand and I think all of us agree on.

‘If that means the rest of us living under more severe restrictions then we will not shy away from saying that as well.

‘But we have to give ourselves the time to understand this virus a little bit more.’

Campaign groups have warned that forcing pupils to return to home learning could have dire consequences for their education.

Jo Bisset, Scotland organiser for parents’ group UsforThem, said: ‘The Government has got this the wrong way round.

‘Children and parents shouldn’t have to beg for the legal right to even a half-decent education.

‘This home- schooling plan will damage the education and wellbeing of tens of thousands of children f or the second year running.’

Miss Bisset has also warned that the decision to keep schools closed in early January will ‘hurt the poorest children in society the most’, adding: ‘They now risk falling off the radar, while a mental health time bomb for all youngsters is being created right before our eyes.’

However, teaching unions have welcomed the plans to keep schools closed.

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said: ‘Given that the EIS has been calling for a firebreak around the Christmas break, we view this announcement as being the correct one.’

He added that schools are ‘better prepared’ for remote learning than during the first lockdown.

‘Mental health time bomb’