Prime minister says schools won’t reopen until at least June as he outlines plans for who returns first

Schools in Wales will not reopen until at least June, according to the Prime Minister.

Speaking on the Andrew Marr program on Sunday, Drakeford outlined the Welsh government’s priorities for children returning to school.

He said it would take “at least three weeks” to plan a reopening.

Drakeford said: “Our advice from union authorities is that we will need a minimum of three weeks from the time we decide to do so until the schools can reopen. So we are talking in early June there.”

The Prime Minister then described the groups of children he was prioritizing to return to school as quickly as possible.

The group includes:

• Children with special educational needs.
• Year six children
• Children who learn Welsh but do not have Welsh speakers at home

He explained: “We are thinking of ways in which we can bring young people to special educational needs back to education.

“We are thinking of individual year groups. Sixth grade children in elementary schools, children going to secondary schools this September. We know it is a right of way. You do it with your classmates and yet you will not have seen Those friends, for six weeks, can we get those kids to school earlier?

“We have a bilingual education system here in Wales, the children are learning in the middle of Welsh, but they may not speak Welsh at home, do we need those children to go back to education sooner? Those are the things we are working on “

The Prime Minister added that they had to convince teachers and parents that it was safe for children to return and that social distancing could be maintained.

Drakeford said: “You certainly cannot reopen schools as they did before and maintain social distancing. And social distancing is needed for public health reasons, but you also need it to convince parents and teachers that you are asking the Young people who return to a safe environment for them.

“And that’s the other great job we’re doing right now. You can open whatever you want but if people don’t think it’s safe to go there, they will vote with their feet up.”

“I think of this as a gradual way that we are not going to have all the kids back in all the schools the same day. We get those kids that we have the highest priority to start with, we carefully monitor it, we add more kids already that we are sure that we can do it safely and in time we will return to something normal that we were used to. “