School in Wales

The Welsh Government has said opted to abandon its phased approach to school reopening and shut schools until January 18.

https://twitter.com/wjc_usavscanada

It follows weeks of debate about whether schools can safely open given the increased spread of the new variant of coronavirus.

In a statement education minister Kirsty Williams said that she was “confident” that “schools and colleges have online learning provision in place for this immediate period”.

You can read the full details on the school closures here.

This is everything Ms Williams said in her statement:

Prynhawn da.

The Welsh Government, in consultation with the WLGA and Colegau Cymru, has just agreed that all schools and colleges will move to online learning until January 18th.

As a government we will use the next two weeks to continue to work with local authorities, schools and colleges to best plan for the rest of term.

This is the best way to ensure that parents, staff and learners can be confident in the return to face to face learning, based on the latest evidence and information.

Schools and colleges will remain open for children of critical workers and vulnerable learners, as well as for learners who need to complete essential exams or assessments.

We had already ensured that schools had full flexibility in the first two weeks of term to decide when to reopen based on local circumstances.

But it is now clear that a national approach of online learning for the next fortnight is the best way to contribute to reducing the transmission of coronavirus.

We know that schools and colleges have been safe and secure environments throughout the pandemic and that continues to be the case.

However, we also know that education settings being open can contribute to wider social mixing outside the school and college environment.

We are confident that schools and colleges have online learning provision in place for this immediate period, and this will also be important in ensuring that students are at home during this time, learning and staying safe.

I know that this announcement will raise questions for many of you, I will try and address some issues in the thread below.

Please share this message to help make others aware and, again, thank you for doing all that you can to help keep Wales safe.