Covid in Scotland: Youngest pupils to return to classrooms

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The youngest pupils are to return to Scotland's classrooms for face-to-face teaching from next week, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.

The move will see all children in P1 to P3 and those at pre-school returning from Monday 22 February.

Other age groups will continue to learn from home, apart from some secondary pupils who need to complete coursework.

And the first minister said all other lockdown restrictions would continue until "at least the start of March".

The government is to draw up a "revised strategic framework" - to be published next week - to set out how Scotland can exit lockdown and what conditions will need to be met before restrictions can be eased.

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In an update at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon said she had "more reason to be hopeful now than we did a few weeks ago" that the race against the virus could be won, with the vaccination programme picking up pace while lockdown contains the spread of new cases.

She said she was "very hopeful that vaccination will start to have a significant impact in reducing the number of people who die from Covid", saying there was already evidence of this in care homes.

However, the first minister warned that "our situation is still very fragile", saying: "Even a slight easing of restrictions could cause cases to start rising rapidly again".

While she said it would continue to be "extremely cautious", the government is focused on a "gradual, phased return to as much normality as possible".

This is to begin with schools, with the youngest pupils to return to classrooms as soon as next week.

But Ms Sturgeon said there would be "trade-offs", adding: "We are choosing to use the very limited headroom we have right now to get at least some children back to school - because children's education and wellbeing is such a priority.

"But being able to get children back to education may mean the rest of us living with some other restrictions for longer."

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February 17, 2021 at 02:39AM
By BBC Panorama
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56087581