Covid: Scottish schools to start phased return this month

Scotland's youngest pupils are likely to return to the classroom full time from 22 February as schools start a phased reopening.

The move will include all pupils in P1-P3 as well as pre-school children.

There will also be a part-time return, but on a very limited basis, for senior secondary pupils to allow them to complete work for national qualifications.

A final decision will be taken on the partial reopening in a fortnight.

Further details of the next phase of the gradual return to schools will also be set out at that point, alongside a timescale for the return of in-person learning for colleges and universities.

All of the country's other lockdown restrictions will remain in place until at least the end of the month, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.

But she said she was "cautiously optimistic" that some gradual easing of the rules could be possible from early March.

The first minister said the government intended to allow "small increases" in existing provision for children and young people with significant additional support needs from 22 February.

And she said there would be a "significant expansion" of testing in schools and nurseries in the coming weeks.

Ms Sturgeon also stressed that the schools announcement was dependent on the virus continuing to be suppressed.

Schools across Scotland have been closed to the vast majority of pupils since the Christmas holidays, with learning being done at home and online.

Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament that she wanted to see children back in full-time, face to face education as soon as possible.

And she said she was acutely aware of the wider health, developmental and social harms being experienced by young people while they were not in school, and of the pressure school closures was putting on working parents and family life.

But she said the current state of the pandemic and the need to protect the country as much as possible from the virus meant that her options for reopening schools were limited.

She added: "The judgment the Cabinet arrived at this morning, based on the advice of our expert advisers, is that if we all agree to abide with the lockdown restrictions for a bit longer - so that our progress in suppressing the virus continues - we can begin a phased, albeit gradual, return to school from 22 February."

All of mainland Scotland and some islands are currently under the country's toughest level four restrictions, with non-essential shops closed and strict travel rules in force.

And there has been growing concern in recent days that Scotland's vaccination programme is lagging behind the rest of the UK.

The country had vaccinated the lowest percentage of its adult population - 12.7% - of all of the four UK nations by Monday.

The figure for England stood at 17.8% while it was 16% in Wales and 14.8% in Northern Ireland.

Ms Sturgeon said a further 34,881 people had been vaccinated in Scotland since Monday, the highest daily total so far.

It brings the total number of people to have received the vaccine in Scotland, which has about a twelfth of the UK population, to 610,778.

The UK as a whole had vaccinated about 9.3 million people by Monday.