“I’m very pleased to announce that from next Monday, school will be going back to face-to-face teaching,” the premier said this morning.
“We used this time to prepare ourselves for a COVID-safe environment; from now on we don’t ever want to see a situation where all schools are closed.”
But school will not return to normal, with no assemblies, no excursions, no inter-school sport, and parents to be kept off campus.
Staggered face-to-face learning restarted across NSW last week, with Year 12 students at state and independent schools attending three to four days a week.
Other students were allowed to go to school at least one day a week, however many parents had been sending their children every day as they returned to work.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said she was pleased with the return to school approach the government has taken so far.
“We’ve had excellent attendance over the past two weeks,” she said.
Mitchell said from Monday, parents will be expected to send their children to school, as required by NSW law.
“We expect students to attend, it is a normal school week and rolls will be marked as normal,” she said.
“My message to parents is that the health advice is that schools are safe... children need to be attending schools and that’s part of the law in NSW that they are there.
“The message is still clear, if you are unwell, you should stay at home and that remains the case within a school setting.”
She said consideration would be given to people with medical exceptions.
Many Catholic and private schools are also bringing students back full-time from Monday, when schools in Queensland and Victoria will also reopen.
Other schools across the state will reopen from the start of June.
Students have been learning remotely since March 24, and schools were initially asked to prepare for a whole term of remote learning.
A month ago, the government was not planning to fully reopen schools until Term 3, after a gradual increase in days attended by students.
