This article is more than 4 months old

This article is more than 4 months old

New South Wales school students will go back to school one day a week from 11 May, gradually building up to a full timetable by term three, Gladys Berejiklian has said.

In revealing more detail of a previously announced plan to have students return from week three of term two, the premier said: “Definitely from May 11 … students will start going back to school.”

Schools will have additional cleaning protocols and may even have temperature checks for children.

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“Initially, it will just be a day a week,” Berejiklian said. “And then progressively two days, and then we hope by the end of term two we’ll be in a position to have students going back to school in a full-time capacity by term three.”

NSW is in the final week of Easter holidays. The first week of term two was to be next Monday, 27 April.

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Berejiklian stressed it would be months before schools returned to normal operation.

“We’ve made sure we’ve used this time not just to build up our online capacity, in case children, or a proportion of them do need to continue learning from home, but we’ve also made sure we have enough hand sanitisers, soap and all those things which make a school community feel safe, not just be safe.

“Schools will also have capacity for temperature checks where they think it’s appropriate.”

The state’s education minister, Sarah Mitchell, paid tribute to schoolteachers and principals for managing the transition to remote learning during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic: “Their innovation and the work that they have done to move learning to at home and online has been phenomenal.”

The minister said while the government had outlined a broad plan to return schools to full capacity by term three, individual schools would be given “flexibility and discretion” as to how to implement their returns.

“We want them to make sure they are having about a quarter of students on campus each day, but how they break that group up will be a matter for them.

“But we are asking them to certainly consider family groupings, keeping siblings together, so that that will make it a lot easier for parents as we transition back to normal schooling.”

Mitchell said extra measures would be taken to protect students and staff.

“We will have extra cleaning, extra sanitiser, extra health provisions, including forehead thermometers, and also extra health equipment in our sick bays. And we’ll also be asking parents to stagger drop-off and pick-up times, and recess and lunch breaks within our schools.”

Queensland began term two on Monday, with the state government’s new online learning portal overwhelmed by 1.8 million students trying to access it. The system crashed after just 30 minutes and remained down on Tuesday morning.

Only 12% of students in the state physically attended school on Monday, with the rest trying to learn from home.

Victorian schools are set to remain closed until the end of term two, but the premier, Daniel Andrews, said those restrictions might be eased if Covid-19 cases remained stable and new infections low.

“If we were continuing to see very stable numbers … then of course we would always reserve the right to look at those restrictions.”

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In Western Australia, the government has said schools will be open for all children from the start of term two on 29 April but attendance will be voluntary.

“All parents and carers can choose to send their children,” said the premier, Mark McGowan. “If parents don’t feel comfortable sending their kids to school, for whatever reason, they will not be obligated to do so.

“However, year 11 and 12 students are very strongly encouraged to attend.”

McGowan said the plan for term two would be reviewed at the end of week three.