Schools across Scotland are to remain closed as the country enters a new period of national lockdown.
Fears over the rise of a new strain of coronavirus have lead to the decision to close the doors of all nursery, primary and secondary schools.
The First Minister said that of all the decisions she had to take surrounding the new lockdown, closing schools was the most defficuly, whose impact was the "most severe".
How long will schools be closed?
Nursery, primary and secondary schools - currently shut for the Christmas holidays - will remain closed until February 1 at the earliest.
Are any pupils exempt?
As before, children classed as vulnerable and those of key workers will still be able to attend schools.
These 'hub schools' will be down to individual local authorities.
What happens next?
The situation will be reviewed on January 18, and every two weeks thereafter. But it is unlikely schools will reopen before February 1.
From January 11, pupils will be able to access online learning and continue lessons at home, though the exact provision is down to each local authority.
What did the First Minister say?
Ms Sturgeon said: “Just as the last places we ever want to close are schools and nurseries, so it is the case that schools and nurseries will be the first places we want to reopen as we re-emerge from this latest lockdown.
“They remain our priority.”
The First Minister also said that work was being done to see if school and childcare staff could be made a priority for vaccination.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel